Hana Surf Girls Ride SBIFF

This joyous Thursday evening world premiere at the Lobero began with an appearance by the UCSB Polynesian dance group and ended with a Q&A featuring the stars of the documentary Hana Surf Girls, Lipoa Kahaleuahi and Monyca Byrne Wickey, and the director, Santa Barbara’s Russ Spencer. Spencer found his subject by chance on a 2007 vacation to Maui with his girlfriend. Having chosen out-of-the-way Hana (pop. approximately 250) as their destination, the pair was astounded to see totally unknown world-class surfers ripping the local break daily. And not only that, some of the best of them were girls.

Unable to shake this vision of small town Maui life, Spencer contacted one of the best athletes in the lineup, Lipoa Kahaleuahi, and found out that she had recently begun attending UCSB. They met, and the rest is pretty much in the film.

Hana Surf Girls represents the kind of hybrid that only a confident, mid-career filmmaker like Spencer could pull off. There’s plenty of great surfing footage, but it’s not a conventional, or even an unconventional “surf movie.” There are points at which HSG takes on some of the tasks typically required of a standard sports documentary, such as observing contests and acknowledging milestone performances. And there are even moments when it veers hard in the direction of those backgrounders that NBC concocts for the Olympics.