Isolated (Justin Le Pera 2013) USA, UK

Reviewed by Robin Eriksson. Viewed at Santa Barbara International Film Festival, 2013.

I’ve seen 3 surf documentary’s at Santa Barbara film festival this year ( 2013 ) and i thought this one was the best one. It’s a documentary about 5 world class surfers that wants to find undiscovered waves in the journalist dead zone island of New Guinea. The surfers was Travis Potter, Jenny Useldinger, Andrew Mooney, Jimmy Rotherham and Josh Fuller. The surfers that came from different places in the world all had a big passion for finding this new waves, but early in the movie they found other things that they didn’t even knew existed.

When they got to Papua in New Guinea they felt quickly that the island was dominated by the military. They dissuaded to take a boat early in the morning to get away from the town and the military. They found a little island with kids running around on the beach, so they stopped there and asked if it was okey for them to stay there over the night, and it was. The kids thought it was really funny and got very curious when the surfers got there with all the surfing boards. So the surfers stayed there and became more and more comfortable. They was even so comfortable that they wanted to stay. The people there were so poor and they told the surfers many stories about all the corruptness that was in the country.

Then the surfers went home but they returned i think it was a year later. When they got there and wanted to surprise the people that became their friends, they saw something that they never had expected. Everyone was gone. So they asked a guy there were everyone where and he sad that everyone was gone because the government has decided to built a hotel there.

The surfers even started to feel so much for the people in the country of New Guinea that they started a petition that needs 25000 signatures in order to get the white house to acknowledge it and help the people in Guinea. I’ve sign it and i think everyone should, the website is www.isolated.tv. Sign you too!