Splinters (Adam Pesce 2011): USA

Reviewed by Jan Mclaughlin. Viewed at Santa Barbara International Film Festival.

Splinters location is the tiny Vanimo village in Papua New Guinea, blessed with a perfect year round surf break the members of the four Klan community have developed a passion for surfing. In the 1980’s a pilot named Crazy Taz left a surfboard behind. Surfing becomes the fast track to social and financial status on the island. Two surf teams compete in the first ever National Surfing Championship in Papua New Guinea  and the winners will get the opportunity to get off the island and see the modern world of Australia.

The surfing serves as a vehicle to tell a much larger story of modern vs tribal, domestic violence and gender equality. We see men and women of a poor native culture completely foreign to us. The surfers personal lives reveal much about island cultural taboos.

Director Adam Pesce invites contemplation about tribal island life and the transition of how modern ways are being adopted. I had the opportunity to sit in on a Q & A with the director after a showing of Splinters at the SBIFF.

Q. How did you end up in Papua New Guinea?

A. Pesce. I was a Santa Barbara surfer and I interned at the U.N.. I put together my passions, international relations and surfing.

Q. How did you integrate into the culture and learn the language?

A. Pesce. I took a trip there after college and bought a camera, came back to L.A. and viewed the film, then went back a second time. I spent the first two months not filming. First and foremost we were surfers. After the horrendous public beating of a women villagers asked why I was filming it. I got up in front of several hundred people at the village council and told them I was there to film surfing but also their way of life. The first language of Papua New Guinea is Melanesian Pidgin English.

Q. Here is a community that is facing the future but is having trouble giving up tribal ways?

A. Pesce. That question was in my mind the entire time. It was hard to decipher the amount of domestic violence in that country. Leslie (Vanimo female surfer) is a pioneer. There is that dark element…but then it’s Edan.

Q. What did you see in the village that you would be afraid would be lost?

A. Pesce. There is such a sense of community there. The individual is so less important. The surf board and board shorts get shared.

Q. Did you have the idea of the story with the competition before you went?

A. Pesce. There is a genre of competition films like Hoop Dreams and Murder Ball. In a feature film you write it out but with a documentary it’s a leap of faith.