Sliding Liberia: war, peace and surfing
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Far more than perfect wave porn in exotic destinations, Sliding Liberia looks beyond surf cinema cliches as four young surfers head to war torn West Africa - to explore the deadliest stretch of coastline on the planet.
Liberia was founded by freed American slaves, who maintained a peaceful and independent history as they developed the nation - until a savage civil war erupted in 1989. Rival armed groups competed for resources and power, ravaging the country with a blind blood thirst, until, in 2003, the UN deployed the largest peacekeeping force in the world - 15 000 troops - to keep peace and rebuild the nation.
Still reeling in the shock of a vicious civil war - devastating both the landscape and people - this is no typical surf destination. But it's this precise challenge that inspired seasoned travellers and pro surfers Dan Malloy, Chris Del Moro and Crystal Thornburg to join Nicholai Lidow (a Stanford University student and former peace building volunteer who lived with Liberian refugees in Ghana) to create a documentary and call for social change.
A local grom Sliding Liberia
After teaming up with So Cal surfer, producer, director, editor and fellow Stanford student Britton Caillouette, the fie bought a beat-up taxi cab and embarked on a real surfari, documented by vintage 16mm film, digital video, and archival news reel footage and aiming to instigate social change.
In addition to finding incredible secret surf spots - with epic action footage as proof - Sliding Liberia adds socialist commentary to the classic surf film formula. Not just a western travel log, it is more a record of the people met during their journey, and the realities of a post conflict world, in comparison to the pure pleasure of surfing.
Filled with personal memories from the Liberian people - including that of Alfred, Liberia's first surfer who started riding waes after discoering a body board when fleeing from rebels - Sliding Liberia records their recent harsh history. But it's also a tale of hope; how human relationships, personal interactions and the instinct to explore, can create a positive change to benefit both individuals and a nation as a whole.
Watch the trailers below to taste the full length -
out now on DVD at Amazon
Hope (trailer number one):
Mystery (trailer number 2)
Alfred's Story (trailer number 3):
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Sliding Liberia: war, peace and surfing (text) by Gemma Freeman is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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