The Ductumentary - Full Movie

The surf legend Joel Tudor has appeared in more than 100 surf films, but “The Ductumentary,” a documentary short presented by Vans that will have its premiere on Monday, is the first one he’s been involved with making. It’s a portrait of the Duct Tape Invitational Series, an unorthodox longboarding contest that Tudor, the two-time longboarding world champ, started in 2010 as an antidote to the Association of Professional Surfing’s longboard competition circuit. At 25 minutes, the documentary is equal parts surfer porn and examination of Tudor’s roots and impact on the sport.

Nolan HallJoel Tudor

The 37-year-old San Diego native is almost single-handedly responsible for the resurgence of longboarding. The surf historian Matt Warshaw has described him as “the Raphael of the longboard renaissance.” In the late ’80s, when all of Tudor’s friends were trying to ride the ultrathin tri-fin boards that were all the rage then, he began exclusively riding longboards, which had fallen out of fashion, perceived by most as clunky, primitive relics. “That whole mentality of ‘longboarding’s not cool’ is something I’ve been hearing my whole life,” he said. “It made me want to do it more. I was never one that wanted to conform.” It wasn’t just his taste in boards that was different. He was also fascinated with moves that were popular in the ’50s and ’60s: drop-knee turns and five-second nose rides. “It’s not just how much you can do on a wave, or how crazy you can get,” he has said. “It’s also, How much cleaner can you make it? How much more beauty and style can you put into it?”

He conceived the Duct Tape Invitational to recapture that ethos and hang onto it. “Some kind of rebirth was needed to keep the vibe alive, otherwise it was going to die off like it did before,” Tudor said. Things have certainly changed, however, since the days when Tudor was the only kid on the beach with a longboard, footage of which, shot by his mom, appears in “The Ductumentary.” “I went to Australia in 1992 before longboarding came back,” Tudor remembered, “and drove all over the country and surfed alone at these incredible spots because the shortboarders didn’t want to deal with it. I go back now and it’s packed.”

“The Ductumentary” will have its premiere on Oct. 7 at offthewall.tv. 

http://tmagazine.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/10/03/now-screening-the-king-of-modern-longboarding-looks-back/?_r=1