When a man's poor he's hungry for everything, not only for bread. And so he becomes a surfer from necessity, from ambition. 

Contrary to many opinions, Italo Ferreira isn’t unpredictable.

He’s very predictable.

He makes a pattern of his future and he follows it stubbornly.

This film, made by director Luiza De Moraes, a relatively small-fry filmmaker although this is no reflection of her fine work, follows the trajectory of Italo from kid growing up in a little beach town, poor as anything, to earning a million bucks a year as a pro surfing world champ.

It’s an old and hackneyed story, but in Italo’s case it’s true: the key to the pro surfing kingdom wasn’t presented to him on an upholstered velvet cushion via a dad that surfed, a benevolent sponsor and a training program where men stand on the beach under an umbrella filming the children for later review of technique.

When a man’s poor he’s hungry for everything, not only for bread. And so he becomes a surfer from necessity, from ambition.

In 2014, when Italo would finish seventh on the WQS, Dino Andino, whose own son would miss his first tour victory four years later because of Italo’s preternatural ability, came up to Timmy Patterson, Italo’s shaper since he was fifteen, and said, “Who is that Italian guy? He’s doing floaters on eight-foot closeouts on grinding beachbreaks and making ‘em. He’s going to be on tour next year. That guy’s a freak.”

Energy. Spirit. Passion. More hackneyed phrases.

But, for Italo, they just work.

Movie releases July.

Tiny empty tubes for happy Hawaiian… 

In this short film, released today, we find Mason Ho south of the now non-existent US border, riding sand-bottom tubes reminiscent of Bruce Brown’s famous Cape Saint Francis discovery in 1962.

The waves are little but are so brilliantly turned out, that once combined with Mason’s goofiness and pert little body, the director is gifted money shot after money shot after money shot, like a barebacking gang-bang scene in a rock-and-cock movie.