10 year-old Dickie Keating in Pacifica, CA. Photo credit: Dick Keating

Surfers underneath the Cliff House, San Francisco. Photo credit: Fred Windisch

Uncle Dick Keating surfing Pacifica, CA in the early 1940's. Photo credit: Dick Keating

On Saturday June 25th at 7pm, at the Ojai Valley Grange, the Ojai-based production company On The Water Front Creative presents a surf film night featuring the award-winning documentary film, “Great Highway: Journey to the Soul of Bay Area Surfing.”

Utilizing rarely seen archival footage and photographs, “Great Highway” traces the roots of Bay Area surfing, which began at San Francisco’s notorious Ocean Beach, and explores the changes to both the City and to the surf scene over decades. The story is told by the people who lived it, from the Hawaiian lifeguards at the City’s giant Fleishhacker Swimming Pool in the 1940’s to kids growing up today who surf the challenging, and increasingly crowded, swells in preparation for Maverick’s and other big wave spots. For more than sixty years, people have surfed the cold waters off San Francisco’s shores, far from the limelight reserved primarily for Southern California’s surf culture. Much like the city of San Francisco itself, the surf culture of Northern California is full of colorful and eccentric characters, who offer their own perspectives on the history and the future of surfing. The film includes interviews with Ocean Beach regulars such as wetsuit mogul Jack O’Neill, exercise guru Jack LaLanne, internationally known big wave surfers Michael Ho and Fred Van Dyke, and northern California surfboard shaper and waterman Dick Keating, to name a few. While the story is rooted in surfing, the film is as much about the history of San Francisco as it is about the beaches that ring the City’s outer edges.

Filmmakers, Mark Gunson and Krista Howell will be in attendance at the Grange screening for a Q&A afterward, so come join us for a night of California surfing history and fun. Part of the ticket sales goes to benefit the Ojai Valley Grange, a local non-profit.

When: Saturday, June 25, 2016. Doors open at 6:30, Film begins at 7pm
Where: The Ojai Valley Grange Hall, 381 Cruzero Street, Ojai, CA
Tickets: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2551563

For More Information: Elizabeth Pepin Silva, otwfront@gmail.com