Surf Films To Watch Online Free | Surfers’ Blood

[Spending more time in front of the screen than usual? More YouTubes than tubes? We’ve compiled a half dozen surf flicks you can watch online free while the world has a little collective think about its behaviour, you can find em all here.

Eyeballs hurt? No worries, check out the Lockdown Special episode of our podcast.]

Surfers’ Blood (2016)

by Patrick Trefz

You’ll find this one on Red Bull TV… Even if you don’t dig the Austrian energy drink-afication of everything in the whole world, pinch your nose and go on their channel and watch it.

It’s an absolute beaut.

Trefz is a brilliant filmmaker who tends to work with similar kind of folk in his movies, to great effect.

A true master of his craft, previous feature length docco’s from Trefz, Thread and Idiosyncracies have made him stand out from a blur of action-based surf films that tend to date very quickly.

Topics range from Basque Country whaling ships to leftfield Swedish designers to Santa Cruz core lords, Trefz’s stock in trade is high end folk stories, original without being wilfully eccentric, intimate storytelling by compelling characters and a clever mix of weighty topics with a certain stylistic levity.

Best of all, his films never get bogged down in classic board design themes, which can be the curse of many a well intentioned surf docco.

There’s even loads of European flavour in this one via a Basque Country cultural deep die with Kepa Acero, Mikel Agote, Patxi Oliden and Natxo Gonzalez.

The story of Darryl ‘Flea’ Viroskto rehab from Mav’s comp winning meth head to reformed character done with typical polish, and segues beautifully into a brilliant Shawn ‘Barney’ Barron tribute.

Seeing as I’ve somehow managed to turn all these film reviews into personal anecdotes, here’s a Barney one.

I met Barney at the Volcom house in Hossegor in the 2000’s with a mate I was living with from Belfast. We were waiting for a friend who was living there, got chatting to Barney.

He was really into all the Belfast chat and was asking my mate about The Troubles, the UVF, IRA, etc etc. So, the UVF are loyalists? What’s the difference between the Provos the Real IRA? He’d done his own homework, but wanted to get the full debrief, which he got over a spleef of the Seignosse Bourg poison.

Barney was totally cool, a true original character with an amazing voice, probably one of the best speaking voices in surfing. Watch the Drew Toonz cartoon of him and Gav the Alien in a space ship.

RIP Barney.