Easy to judge, hard to watch.
The new film En La Tormenta documents the last
five years of WQS hopeful Jhonny Guerrero.
Here’s the short version:
Guerrero taught himself to surf on a snapped board in Lima as
his dad sat in Peru’s hellish Lurigancho prison, his mom and baby
brother without food and broke in Chorrillos, one of Lima’s many
dangerous barrios.
Naturally, gang life seemed like a fun option for Jhonny until
he was shot through the back in a drive-by.
While not explicitly prohibited in the ‘QS Rule Book, none of it
is best practice.
Director Adam Brown originally set out for Peru in 2015 to shoot
Projecto Sofía Mulánovich, a talent scouting and surf
training academy led by Sophia herself, a former ASP World Tour
Champion and current ISA World Games gold medal winner. Most of the
kids invited into the Projecto came from the country’s middle and
upper classes, equipped with fine quivers and supportive
parents.
Jhonny had neither, showing up on the beach alone with an old
board and a hole in his wetsuit.
Brown said that he “kept hearing about this kid called Jhonny
Guerrero who was from a tough neighborhood. He had supposedly
taught himself to surf on a piece of foam and then a broken board
he had found on the beach and now he was absolutely ripping. He
seemed like a bit of a myth and whenever I said to Sofia’s team
that we should get him along to the trials, there was always some
hesitatio. There were (unfounded) rumors at the time that Jhonny
was robbing people on the beach to survive.”
Still, Sofía took a chance on the quiet kid, seeing both
his drive and natural ability to read a wave right.
“Here in Peru mostly all the families that surf know each other
and their love for the sports comes from generation to generation,”
Sofia told me. “But Jhonny came from the city and nobody really
knew about him and his family. He comes from a really unstable
social background and I decided to help him because he didn’t have
the means to get good equipment and coaching but he was super
talented .”
And he was every bit as good as people had described: smooth and
fluid, a raw talent that got Sofia and her coaches excited. Jhonny
ended up being selected as part of a group of ten talented kids
that would be trained by Sofia and her team.
Sofia’s interest in helping Jhonny went beyond teaching him how
to get more power off his back foot. She and the others at the
Projecto helped him keep distance from the gangs infesting his
barrio.
“Jhonny was always in an environment that led him to street
life, so we tried to help him by guiding him in the best possible
way to put all his energy into his surfing. We moved him to a
different house with a really nice family that surfs,” said
Sofia.
In the film, we see Jhonny pick up sponsors including Hurley and
others who throw him clothes and money, some of which he uses to
buy a bed for his little brother and give some to his mom who says
him, exhaustedly, “I’m so hungry.”
Happily ever after. Thank you, Hurley.
But the story arc of En La Tormenta isn’t that
clean.
Even with the lifeline Sophia hands him, Jhonny goes back to
what he knows. He’s anchored to the street. During the Peruvian
under 16 finals, Jhonny was the favorite to win, but he never makes
it to the sand, leaving Sofia and his support team defeated. When
the camera catches his coach trying to shake some sense into him,
Jhonny looks numb, indifferent at best.
Soon after, he’d be in the hospital nursing two bullet holes
through his body.
It’s easy to judge him here, a raw-talented kid given a golden
ticket to learn fromSofía Mulánovich with all the trimmings:
boards, swag, cash then tossing it all to go back to the
temptations of his barrio.
But environment everything and need has no law.
This is where the film is at its best, leaving us to wrestle
with Jhonny’s decisions as we run our own eyes around our cozy,
carpeted living rooms.
Fortunately for Jhonny, Sofia and his coaches didn’t let him run
around the streets for long and within months of the shooting, we
watch an emotional Jhonny back in the water on the ‘QS, nailing
down some fine results.
En La Tormenta ends before Hurley dropped its team last
year and before COVID-19 shut down Jhonny’s chances of continuing
on tour.
“Cut adrift by circumstances,” as Director Adam Brown says.
Both Sofia and Brown are in frequent contact with Jhonny.
Neither know if he’ll be able to get to the ‘CT.
Back in Chorrillos, Jhonny is pursuing his interest in Latin rap
and has been seen lately in a few surf contests around Lima. Sofia
thinks Jhonny has learned through the years that hard work pays
off.
“He is a really charismatic young man that can succeed in many
areas if he puts his heart and mind into it.”
Watching the movie, we’re left to wonder what’s going to happen
to the kid who’s captured on film crying more than smiling,
splitting his time between ocean and street.
And while beautifully shot (JJF’s filmer Erik Knutson spent some
days behind the lens), En La Tormenta ain’t no promotional
video.
In case you want to throw a buck or two to help poor kids from
Lima’s barrios learn to surf, you can check out Alto Peru.
It just won Best Film at the 2020 Brooklyn Film Festival and
will be available on BBC’s Storyville in January.
Good watching between CT contests.
