A new film conceived, filmed and produced here on the Gold Coast will tell the stories of six surfing women who are all over 55 years old.
Each coming to the pastime for wildly different reasons and surfing at a variety of levels, these six Gold Coasters are finding their place in crowded surfing lineups while they also find themselves.
Jennifer Jeffries is the Executive Producer of the film as well as Founding President of the all-women Boardriders club Surf Witches. Working alongside Jennifer is Director of Photography, Hannah Jessup, founder of Surf Witches and renowned Gold Coast surf photographer.
Jennifer says the film does more than just tell stories about surfing. In ‘Taking Off’, surfing becomes a metaphor for what’s possible for women as they age, inviting audiences to think of the dreams they haven’t yet lived yet.
“When many women hit their 50s they face a huge risk of feeling invisible, disconnected from society, and sometimes losing jobs because they’re told they’re too old,” Jennifer said.
The small-budget but big-hearted production was conceived when Jennifer and her then partner, now wife, Alice attended two surf film festivals in a month. While Jen said they were “cool” it was obvious that older women were missing from the screens.
“We’re 60 years old and a good third of the audience were older women, many who’d taken up surfing later in life. We weren’t represented.
“We thought someone should make a movie about these women. Then we realised WE are someone.”
The pair didn’t even stop to think that they might not know how to make a movie before securing an Investing in Queensland Women Grant from the Queensland Government.
“In fact, that was part of the proposal – we are a group of really passionate women, but none of us have made a documentary before. Yet here we are, these older women, learning how to make a doco,” she said.
According to Jennifer, the process for choosing the six women who feature in the film was really hard. But there was a criteria they had to meet.
“They needed to be a Surf Witch,” she said, adding that the film is a collaboration with the Boardriders Club.
“They had to be over 55, because legally in Queensland that is an ‘older’ person; they had to have taken up surfing later in life; and they had to be active, giving back in the community.”
And it’s that community connection that these women all have in common. Because apart from that and they’re love of surfing and the ocean, they are entirely different: from blue collar workers to PhDs and a range of backgrounds and life experiences.
“All of these women have really locked in to how important this community really is to them,” Jen said, “and they’re protective about it. Not in an exclusionary kinda way, but in a welcome into it kinda way.”
While Jen doesn’t feature in the film, she shares a similar story to many of the women who feature. She was 56 when her 28yo Personal Assistant suggested they have surfing lessons together.
“I’d always been a beach girl, a happy boogie boarder. I never saw surfing as something I could do. It was bigger and harder.”
After a few lessons, Jen met the Surf Witches at the Alley when there were only 11 women in it (three years later there are 3000 and counting). But before that, she said she was scared.
“When I finally met one of the girls in the surf one day I thought, this is cool, we had people to look out for each other.”
Her own experience coming to surfing later in life coupled with more than 30 years’ experience helping older woman as a naturopath have helped shape the film’s purpose.
“I meet these women heading towards 50 or in their 50s who have the career, the relationship, kids are leaving home, life’s boring, and they ask ‘what am I doing?’ They’ve lost confidence, physically their bodies are changing, they’re feeling lost.”
“This film is to give them hope that if we can do it they can do it. The story is not just about surfing – it’s about women who thought ‘what if I gave this a crack?’ and then found a supportive group to help them do that,” she said.
The film will have its world premiere on Saturday 20 May at Southern Cross University. Tickets: bit.ly/TakingOffDoco.