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Directed by Jessica Chen and Jeremiah M. Bogert Jr.
World Broadcast Premiere - July 18, 2024 on World Channel
Streaming Premiere - July 18, 2024 on YouTube
Audience Award - Santa Cruz Film Festival 2022
Audience Choice Best Feature - Honolulu Surf Film Festival 2023World Premiere - Mountain Film Festival Telluride 2023
SYNOPSIS
With unprecedented access SURF NATION is a feature-length observational documentary that tells a story beginning in Hainan, China’s southernmost province where hundreds of athletes as young as 9-years-old train as part of the Chinese National Surf team. These young recruits have left their families around the country and are paid to become surfers with Olympic aspirations.
Shot in a tropical paradise with miles of empty beaches, aspiring athletes and their international coaches live in an old hotel that has become the hub of surfing in China. The kids surf and take classes six days a week. The pressure of failure looms over them as weak performance means dismissal. Their Australian coaches teach technique and surfing’s central attribute: individuality, in a culture that demands conformity. Over a period of two years, we follow two of China’s top surfers, Alex and Lolo, as they train with the team, compete and discover what they want their lives to be.
ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS
Jessica Q. Chen - Director / Producer
Jessica is a Chinese American filmmaker and video producer at the Los Angeles Times. Her work includes the WOMEN OF APOLLO series, which was nominated for an Emmy in 2020; and a short documentary on Caroline Marks, the youngest surfer to qualify for the World Surf League’s championship tour, which won an L.A. Press Award. She was an associate producer for National Geographic’s HELL ON EARTH:THE FALL OF SYRIA AND THE RISE OF ISIS which premiered at the 2017 Tribeca Film Festival. She has lived in New Zealand and Jordan, has a master’s from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism and a bachelor’s in biology from the University of California, Irvine. She speaks Mandarin and basic Arabic.
Jeremiah M. Bogert Jr. - Director / Producer
Jeremiah is currently a photo editor at The New York Times and has more than 25 years of experience producing award-winning visual stories. He was the photo assignments editor at The New York Times during the 9/11 terrorist attacks for which the paper won two Pulitzer Prizes in photography. While at the Los Angeles Times, he edited a story on victims of gang violence which won a Pulitzer Prize in 2011 and was part of the team awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 2016 for coverage of the terrorist attacks in San Bernardino. Additionally, at the Los Angeles Times, he produced several short documentaries, including CHASING THE SWELL, a 2012 film about big wave surfing. He received his BA in philosophy from Yale University and his MA in journalism from the University of Missouri.
Diane Quon - Producer
Diane is an Academy Award-nominated producer who worked as a marketing executive for 17 years at NBC and at Paramount Pictures. Diane produced the Kartemquin Films documentaries: Oscar and Emmy-nominated, Peabody award-winning, MINDING THE GAP directed by Bing Liu (Hulu, POV); THE DILEMMA OF DESIRE directed by Maria Finitzo (Showtime); Emmy-nominated FINDING YINGYING directed by Jiayan “Jenny” Shi (MTVDocs) and FOR THE LEFT HAND (PBS). Other feature documentaries include BAD AXE (IFC FILMS) and WUHAN WUHAN (GRAVITAS, POV); and upcoming documentaries include UNTITLED SAM AND OMAR PROJECT and THE UNTITLED 19TH* NEWS FILM.. In addition, Diane is developing a fiction film based on a New York Times bestselling book, and Bing Liu’s first original screenplay. Diane is an AMPAS and PGA member.
CHINA SURF TEAM ON BEACH in a scene from SURF NATION - photo courtesy of Pacific Avenue Productions
ALEX ON BOARD in a scene from SURF NATION - photo courtesy of Pacific Avenue Productions
CHINA NATIONAL SURFING TEAM TRAINEES WITH COACH MOYU - in a scene from SURF NATION - photo courtesy of Pacific Avenue Productions
TRAINING PARTICIPANT LOLO in a scene from SURF NATION - photo courtesy of Pacific Avenue Productions
SURFER TAKES A MOMENT in a scene from SURF NATION - photo courtesy of Pacific Avenue Productions
ALEX AND TEAM WITH FLAG ON BEACH in a scene from SURF NATION - photo courtesy of Pacific Avenue Productions
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