Chasing Wave Movie

Finishing a film is a target, but winning in a festival is something unpredictable. That must have been what filmmakers Dave Arnold and Tyrone Lebon felt after their documentary film Mengejar Ombak (Chasing Waves) grabbed two awards at the X-Dance Festival in Salt Lake City, Utah last January. 

The film won the awards for Best Original Music and Best Emerging Filmmakers at the X-Dance Festival, the sports documentary festival that runs in conjunction with the Sundance Film Festival.  

Different from other films about surfing, the 45-minute film is more character-based as it unravels the life of professional surfer Dede Suryana from Cimaja, West Java. 

Arnold, who had been making films as a hobby, met Dede when he went to Cimaja to go surfing for the weekend. He decided it would be a great idea to film the young surfer. 

“Dede has an amazing talent and an incredible story. He started surfing when he was very young. He breaks the stereotype that often associates surfers with partygoers. He hardly goes out. I don’t see that in other surfers,” Arnold told The Jakarta Post recently.  

The young Dede first tried surfing in 1993 at the age of 7, using a borrowed surfboard. Since there were no local good surfers, he learned the ropes from surfing videos. His natural talent propelled rumors about a young surfer in West Java with “supernatural” surfing powers.  

In 1997, 12-year-old Dede went to Bali with his brother to compete in the Bali Open contest. The youngest competitor went home with the Rookie Award and made an impression on Rizal Tanjung, one of the famous Indonesian surfers, who hooked Dede up with a local sponsor. 

Dede moved to Bali at 15. Although he had to juggle his school studies and his surfing, Dede won the Bali Pro Junior contest in his first year there. 

“When I first came to Bali, it was a bit hard for me, because I’m a Muslim and Bali is predominantly Hindu. But difficulties exist in every stage of life, and I have just had to deal with them,” Dede said.  

In 2003 he went to Hawaii – the birthplace of surfing – and impressed everyone by beating Kelly Slater, an eight-time world champion. He went on to win two gold medals at the Asian Beach Games held in Bali last year.

His aim is to compete in the World Qualifying Series in 2010.

Dede said that he agreed to participate in the film because he believed the movie would promote a good image of Indonesia internationally.

“Most people only recognize Bali as a surfing location, but we actually have a very long coastline and great waves in places such as Nias, in Aceh, Pangandaran and other beaches in the south. The film shows that Indonesia has much more than just natural disasters and unstable politics,” he said.

“When attending the film’s world premiere, I was afraid the audience would not like it because there is huge gap between our culture and their culture. But they were actually impressed with the simple lifestyle in Indonesia.”

Dede hoped the film would make the government pay more attention to surfing. Despite having big waves, Indonesia has yet to have many professional surfers because sports equipment is so expensive.  

In a way, the film has shaped Dede.  

“At first, I felt a bit odd to have Arnold and his team following me with cameras. They told me to just talk to the camera, without a script. However, it has helped me get used to interviews.”

The film, which started as an idea in 2004, was finally finished by the end of 2008, just a few days before being submitted to the festival. One of the things which slowed down the production process was the funding.

“We had to raise funds. We had other jobs in between the shoots and the money then went to finance the film. I don’t see us making a lot of money but things have started going fine,” Arnold said.

“I have plans to submit it to other festivals. Since winning the awards, I have been approached by many festivals, four in the United States, two in Australia and two in Europe so far. I plan to submit it to Asian film festivals and Muslim film festivals as well.”

As the film opens with a call to prayer from a small mosque in Dede’s hometown, the audience can follow Dede’s journey across five continents. The obstacles and triumphs along his journey come not only from the competitions, but also from his response to new places and cultures, the volatile situation in Indonesia, the financial gain and the growing attention he receives. 

Moving from this central narrative, the film interweaves interviews with leading cultural, historical and industry figures to explore the underlying issues Dede’s story raises.

The film will be screened in Jakarta and Bandung’s Blitz Megaplex cinema group on April 29. The DVD will be released in June.

Closed by a score composed by The Epstein, Sam Murray and Tano Iozzi, the film gives the audience not merely a simplistic portrayal of a competition with winners and losers, nor is it a naïve tale of small-village heroes against the villains of globalization. 

Rather, it is an insight into the life of a young man attempting to assimilate the challenges to his faith and identity, a personal story that gives the audience a wider vision of the changes occurring in many developing countries, such as Indonesia, today.