Stepping Out
Peru Surfing
By Michael Hixon
Peru may not be on the map as a top hot surfing destination but filmmakers T.J. Barrack and Wes Brown heard of the country's long surfing history and traveled to its remotest areas to film "Peel:The Peru Project" showing at the Manhattan Village 6 theaters July 13.
Brown's inspiration for Peru came from reading the book "Kon Tiki" in which anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl developed a controversial theory that the Peruvians had originated surfing and later brought it to the Polnesians. "Peel: The Peru Project" is their second film.
"After the first one ("Islands in the Stream"), we wanted to have a longer, more feature-length film that would have more of a story to it," Brown said. "We wanted to have a gritty early-60's, surf road trip feel to it. We heard South America had places like that".
Once in Peru, the filmmakers enlisted the help of local surfers who took them to remote areas of the coast including Cabo Blanco, a tiny fishing town only accessible by a two-hour ride on a dirt path, where Ernest Hemingway reportedly wrote "The Old Man and the Sea." Featured surfers in "Peel: The Peru Project," aside from the locals, inlcude Mark Healey, Jamie Sterling, Jesse Colombo, Randy Bonds and women's world champion Sofia Mulanovich.
"We were fortunate enough to team up with two guys including Magoo de la Rosa who is a seven-time national Peruvian surfing champion, and another guy by the name of Octopus (de la Rosa's business partner and a security specialist)," said Barrack. "They are two guys down there that we couldn't make the movie without. They knew every in and out, and every spot to go to."
"That's half the reason they do what they do," added Brown on the surfers. "They love to travel and see different places. Adventure and surfing go hand in hand."
In 2003, Barrack and Brown, who grew up together in Santa Ynez, formed Little House Productions, and produced and directed "Islands in the Stream," which followed a group of world-class surfers looking for the perfect wave around Tahiti. The film was a tribute to Brown's grandfather and filmmaker, Bruce Brown, who created the "Endless Summer" and "On Any Sunday" franchises. Brown first worked with father and director Dana Brown and his grandfather on "Endless Summer II," and as the assistant writer and director for his father's film "Step Into Liquid." In the meantime, Barrack had graduated from USC with a bachelor's in English and creative writing.
While in Peru, the filmmakers learned why the sur in Peru is so special and they also had insight on a different surf culture.
"It's like California but all left point breaks instead of right," Brown said. "The surfing culture, they're very close-knit but there's not very many of them. They're in the main cities like Lima but most of the country, it's dirt roads. To get there takes hundreds of miles. You're talking about the left point breaks like Rincon (California) or Koho (Hawaii) and there's nobody on it. It's an incredible coastline."
But the trip, which took 45 days in desert-type conditions, and the film are not all about the surf. Machu Picchu, the pre-Columbian Inca ruin rediscovered in 1911 high atop a Peruvian mountain range, also takes center stage in "Peel: The Peru Project." Barrack said it definitely was a highlight of the shoot.
"It didn't disapoint," said Barrack of Machu Picchu. "It really was amazing, and we were lucky to sneak our cameras in there and get some pretty cool footage."
"Peel: The Peru Project" will be released on DVD the last week of September.
The screenings at the Manhattan Village 6 theater, which is located at 3560 N. Sepulveda Blvd., will take place at 7 and 9 p.m.
For more information, visit www.peelperuproject.com or www.montereymedia.com about the DVD.
