This will make you want to pick up a surf board and head for the sea.
Dr Easkey Britton is a multi-champion surfer, whose family are credited with introducing the sport to Ireland, but she is also a lot more than that.
Easkey has a PHD in Environment and Society, specialising in human wellbeing and coastal resilience. Her TedX Talk ‘Just Add Surf’ has been watched nearly 40,000 times. She co-founded Waves of Freedom, an initiative which uses surfing as a way to empowerment for many of the most marginalised around the world.
As part of that initiative, she travelled to Iran and her experiences surfing with women there became the basis for the documentary, Into the Sea.
In 2017, Easkey set up Like Water, that aimed to use surfing to make connections across cultures and to create social change.
Most recently, Easkey and Like Water have been collaborating on Welcome Wave, a project by Sara and Sam Hunt to provide surf therapy for children in Ireland’s Direct Provision system.
On Monday, Britton’s latest project was released into the world. A Lunar Cycle has already won best short at this year’s Irish Surf Film Festival and it will be part of the Kerry Film Festival and the Dublin International Short Film Festival.
Directed by Andrew Kaineder, the film, Easkey says, “explores themes not yet visited in surf films – fusing coldwater surfing, dance, poetry, prose and natural cycles of the body and nature, capturing my sea connection in winter in Ireland”.
It can be watched through the link below:
It’s stunningly shot and the combination of the beautiful images and the arresting themes will captivate many beyond the surfing community.
“In a society that rewards ‘busyness’ I think understanding the influence of cycles becomes even more important,” Easkey says.
“We all have them, men and women. We’re living beings influenced by our environment and are affected by the cycles of night and day, the moon, the seasons, the tides… As women, we are gifted with an internal cycle, our menstrual cycle – if we’d only been taught how to better listen to our bodies. Our body tells us when it’s time to act and when it’s time to rest.”
Anyone who watches the film will feel it’s time to act and head for the sea.
