In 2011, Shani Judes joined as festival director, and under her stewardship, with help from Spike and others, the Wavescape Surf & Ocean Festival has grown from strength to strength. It has become a must-do festival on the Cape Town calendar. In 2022, Steve Shooter joined to boost our social strategy, as well as create amazing content around the characters who populate our salty world.
In 2024, we will celebrate two decades of serving the ocean community with events that celebrate surfing, activism and ocean conservation that entertains, inspires and motivates.
festival
poster
The 2024 Wavescape Festival poster, crafted by the talented Yeye Weller, is a vibrant celebration of the ocean's spirit and the joy of surfing. The poster features an exuberant character riding the waves, surrounded by a lively ensemble of jellyfish, seals, and playful patterns that evoke the festival's lively atmosphere. Yeye Weller's unique artistic style brings a sense of fun and whimsy to the surfing scene, capturing the essence of the festival's energetic and carefree vibe. The dynamic composition, coupled with the incorporation of marine life and captivating patterns, promises to draw in audiences and convey the excitement and creativity that await them at this year's Wavescape Festival.
2024 Lineup
2024 Board
Art Board Charity Auction
Since 2005, we have curated and managed the Wavescape Art Board Project, with a slew of amazing South African artists who have accepted our invitation to turn surfboards into art for an exhibition and ocean charity auction, which has raised close to R5 million over the years. Nik Rabinowitz or Rob van Vuuren hosts that action at Jack Black’s Taproom for a night of fund-raising, fun and frivolity for some serious causes, including NSRI, Shark Spotters, Ocean Pledge, 9 MilesProject and the Beach Co-op. We have helped fund several NSRI boats and helped the Shark Spotters keep surfers and sharks in mostly harmonious cohabitation.
2024 Board
Thank you to Anton, Life & Matthias from Ferral Surf Boards
IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BID VIA PHONE PLEASE EMAIL – shani@shanijudes.co.za / 0835095106
2024 Board
Beach Clean Up & Queer Surf Meet up
Come join a fun ocean filled morning! First up we have the annual Wavescape beach Clean up at 9am. At 11am we will have an informal surf session for those who identify as queer & for those who support queer folks. Please RSVP in the tickets link and stand a chance to win a festival hamper.
2024 Board
Blue Ocean Film Symposium
In collaboration with Wesgro, this career entry day features speakers who share their experience about the film industry in the Western Cape. This year, we examine young talent and skillsets in Cape Town that can build a dynamic film community. Entrance free. Book at https://www.quicket.co.za/events/253873-blue-ocean-film-symposium/?ref=events-list#/
2024 Board
South Africa, 2022, 8min Director: Rick Wall & Dougal Paterson Charismatic Caleb Swanepoel lost his leg to a great white shark in 2015, while surfing in Buffels Bay in the Southern Cape. Rehab was a stepping stone to come back harder and faster, and he returned to the ocean a few weeks later. His life became a headlong rush to succeed and achieve, fuelled by a burning, innate passion. This short film follows his journey while he finally begins to ease up on this all-consuming quest. He begins to slow down to process his trauma, while learning to free dive, an immersive place in the brine where you start to see things differently – the place that helps him come to terms with a body that has been irreversibly changed forever.
US, South Africa, 2021, 96min Director: Richard Yelland This is the backstory of the most watched documentary of all (in any genre) The Endless Summer, released in 1965. Emmy Award-winning director Richard Yelland tracks grizzled Californian surf pioneer Dick Metz as he vagabonds the globe from 1958 to 1961, and returns to South Africa decades later. Importantly to us, it chronicles in detail what actually happened – warts and all – when Robert August and Mike Hynson came upon our shores with Bruce Brown to shoot the original. It tells the story of how Dick met John Whitmore, by “happenstance” as the Oom later recalls, which changed the history of surfing forever. A nostalgic Dick, 92, meets up with local surfers and visits old haunts where he shared good times with the Oom and his family.
South Africa, 2022, 9min Throughout history, Black communities have had a treacherous relationship with water, depicted as a powerful yet destructive entity in African folklore. This is a story never told before, but necessary now more than ever: a modern day tale of the Black Mermaid, Zandile Ndhlovu, a South African free diver who takes us to discover the magic of the Sardine Run.
South Africa, 2019, 20min Director: Blake Myers Sonic Souvenirs is a series of portraits that takes us on an exploration of art, music and surfing with Mikey February as he travels around his homeland, connecting with artists and surfers. Our first episode trails Mikey close to home journeying up and down the East and West coast of South Africa. His soulful surfing style interfaces with the languid pace of the musicians he meets along the way, including the inimitable guitarist Madala Kunene from Durban. The result is a spiritual – almost mystical – visual connection with his natural environment, his surfing an expression of his art.
South Africa, 2016, 11min Director: Jess Colquhoun Hidden north of Durban, in the rural regions of the Valley of a Thousand Hills, a secret spot for young shredders grows in stature and popularity. The Indigo Skate Camp empowers the local community to learn and grow through the language of skateboarding and the opportunities it brings.
France, 2022, 13min Director: Guillem Cruells This languid film profiles the soulful style and alternative spirit of French longboarding savant Clovis Donizetti. From his surfing roots in Biarritz to his self-taught education in literature, philosophy, and music, Donezetti and his fellow countryman Jules Lepecheux travel through southern Spain in search of culturally rich parallels between riding waves and the performing flamenco arts.
US, 2023, 37min Director: Jack Coleman The title of this great little film is self explanatory. Surfing is, of course, the ultimate Natural High. And, as alternative surf writer and finless savant Jamie Brisick says, when you watch a Jack Coleman movie, you plunge into a joyous world filled with peeling waves and sideways drifts and luminous characters and always great music. Kiff surf flick with extra salt and a bigger dose of soul.
New Zealand, 2023, 6min Director: Lauren Hill There is science behind surfing’s fluid dance. The nose ride is one of surfing’s peak moments not too far from the tube ride; part fluid dynamics, and part magic. But how does nose riding actually work? What makes this bizarre suspension between sea and sky physically possible? The Physics of Noseriding explores the question through the eyes of Namaala, a young surfer whose people were flying on the water long before the world even knew what surfing was. Her curiosity invites us to examine the sensation of levitation that unfolds as wave, surfboard and surfer come together, a place where human and ocean intersect for the motion of surfing’s fluid dance.
Australia, 2023, 93min Director: Bentley Dean This documentary feature depicts the sheer brutal insanity of West Australian slab surfing that makes your skin crawl with fiery sea lice scuttling in abject terror from giant waves. We sink below the surface into the roiling depths of hellman surfer Kerby Brown’s psyche. Much more than a simple surfing story, this is a searing glimpse into that twilight zone between life and death. This dark, swirling place is the epiphany that near-death can bring to a man fixated on a single minded mission that can only end in the impact zone of foaming bedrock at a ferocious slab no one on the planet has surfed before, and perhaps will never surf again.
Morocco, 2023, min Director: Sam Christiansen In Africa, we journey to the sights and sounds of Morocco with South African longboarder Sam Christiansen.
UK, 2023, 4min Director: Seth Hughes This is a poetic visual ode to ‘walking the nose’. For the uninitiated, that means pulling off fluid dance moves as you cross-step back and forth along the top of your longboard while ‘logging’ small waves. The result is a gorgeous art form that codifies grace and style. But knowing when to move forwards or back entails great skill. Apart from balance and poise, you need a carefully honed instinct for what part of your board is connecting with the wave. In that moment, you also need to read the energy of the wave, and how and where it is about to break. Either way, this sumptuous little film is a wonderful expression of this genre of water dancing.
US, 2023, 94min Director: Michael Cohen It’s surprising we haven’t seen a film like this before. Humanity Stoked is an experiment into how humanity can move forward, as espoused by the world’s most iconic skateboarders, activists, scientists, artists, musicians, and educators all unified by unique experiences and perspectives shaped by their love of skateboarding. The film depicts how we can peacefully, openly, and intelligently advance humanity into the future. Conversations range from human rights and LGBTQ rights to racial equality. The protagonists speak of how we teach children about fear, environmental protection, giving back, and the value of science, art and music in education and to society. There are frank discussions around drug addiction and recovery, and mental health. An inspiring look at how humans can be empathetic to the world around them.
Global, 2023, 7.31min Director: Shayn Sykes Blink profiles the talents of Shane Sykes in some of the most pristine and exquisite surfing locations in Indonesia, Mexico, California and South Africa.
This is the story of James Lea, who uses his skill as a scientist to protect sharks in places where they can still thrive. Directed by Oscar Award winner Pippa Ehlrich (My Octupus Teacher), we dive deep into the vital role science plays in safeguarding vulnerable species like sharks and rays.
Powerfull doccie set in the 70s about two Australians who find paradise on Nias Island, Indonesia, a huge neolithic island, where head hunting was recent. The epic waves they find leads to profound changes to an ancient culture. Kiff animation, archival footage and amazing music.
After two years planning a surf trip to remote east Russia, an hour their flight to Moscow, Russia invades Ukraine. This film has it all - Mi-8 helicopters, skidoos, and frozen campsites and bank accounts. The trip to Kamchatka (29 active volcanoes) was more than anyone could imagine. When the world saw the worst of human nature, these ous flew behind the iron curtain and found the best of it.
An animated surf documentary unlike any other. A board will come into your life, and sort of teach you something. That's what happened with the stoker machine.