New Scottish Surf Movie ‘Silent Roar’ Set to Open Edinburgh International Film Festival

A contemporary tale of surfing, sex and hellfire set on an island in the Outer Hebrides.

No, not the title of Kelly Slater’s new autobiography. Nor, a new WSL branding initiative. It is the tagline for the new film Silent Roar set to open the new-look Edinburgh International Film Festival in August. 

Shot entirely on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, it is Scottish writer-director Johnny Barrington‘s debut feature and stars emerging actor Louis McCartney as Dondo, a young surfer struggling to accept his father’s recent disappearance at sea.

The film’s producer is the Isle of Skyes’ Chris Young, best known for his work on ‘The Inbetweeners Movie’. Silent Roar was made in partnership with Screen Scotland, BBC Film, and BFI.

Barrington said the film “has an essence from the Highlands and Islands, in particular the Hebrides, capturing the rugged beauty and distinctive character of the region.”

Now surfing and fiction films have had a complicated, and not always successful, relationship. For every Big Wednesday, Point Break, and Blue Crush (20 years old this year!), there have been 20 Chasing Mavericks and In God’s Hands. 

The UK’s filmmakers, though, have a better record than most. Last year we covered the role the Cornish cult classic Blue Juice played in launching the career of Catherine Zeta-Jones and capturing the humour and hardships of the UK surf scene. More recently, British filmmakers Jeremy Joyce and Rob Lockyear’s mockumentaries ‘Freezing’, ‘The Shaper’, and ‘Outrider’ were some of the funniest surf films made in the last decade. 

Now, Silent Roar’s plot line involving a surfer caught up in grief, a rebellious crush, played by actor Ella Lily Hyland, and a series of cosmic visions might not be a barrel of laughs, but it sure has potential. And after all, who doesn’t enjoy surfing, sex, and hellfire? 

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