San Clemente star Griffin Colapinto’s brilliant new movie is dedicated to radical surfing and perhaps even more radical cinematography.
Ranked No. 1 in the world and bound for the Paris Olympics this summer, Griffin Colapinto currently sits at the top of the surfing game. And now he has a new signature film dropping, after more than three years in production. The official trailer for Trilogy: New Wave was released last week, and while it’s currently touring Australia, the film is coming to the Rivian Theater in Laguna Beach next month as part of the U.S. Board Riders National Championships, which will take place May 17-18 at Lower Trestles. Local audiences got a sneak peek of the movie last year at the Coast Film and Music Festival.
Joining Colapinto in the film are longtime friends and sparring partners Ethan Ewing and Seth Moniz. They traveled the world, exploring exotic destinations and taking their surfing to new heights in the process, on the way to making Trilogy one of the most anticipated surf films of 2024.
“Seth and I have been friends pretty much our whole lives,” Colapinto explains. “The first time I went to Hawaii, we surfed together, and we’ve been tight ever since then. Ethan and I have also spent a lot of time traveling together and competing against one another. We really push each other in the water.”
The film was written and directed by Andrew Mackenzie and executive-produced by Taylor Steele. Interestingly, Colapinto and his co-stars were just coming into their own when the film started production five years ago, and none of them had risen to the stature they enjoy today.
Colapinto and Ewing stole the surf world’s heart last year in their showdown at the WSL Finals at Lower Trestles. Coming back from a broken back he had suffered while training in Tahiti, Ewing got the better of the hometown hero and went on to finish runner-up in the world title competition.
“Trilogy: New Wave is really a coming-of-age story, as we see the guys mature into the top surf talent in the world. Their genuine friendship helps to unlock success, but don’t be fooled, there’s also a real rivalry between the three,” Mackenzie explains. “As they say, ‘iron sharpens iron,’ and you see the guys push each other to new heights, with each surfing longer, and progressing more quickly, than they would alone.”
Taking surf cinematography to new heights, Mackenzie and his team at Aether Films figured out how to leverage six cameras with a wide variety of angles on a single scene, including an FPV racing drone angle that is new to surfing. This allowed Mackenzie to take more chances, cut some camera angles closer and create a completely fresh take on how the world sees surfing.
Central to the new Trilogy film is the veneration for Andy Irons, Joel Parkinson and Taj Burrow and the original Trilogy film. In 2007, those three surfers anchored the Billabong team and had a stranglehold over the Championship Tour rankings. Irons was raw and relentless, Parkinson as smooth as they come, while Burrow was the consummate innovator. They inspired countless surfers of the era with their competitive fervor and free surf mastery, including then-groms Colapinto, Ewing and Moniz.
“It’s been a crazy process, but the film is amazing. I think career-defining parts will come out of this,” explains Enich Harris, who co-founded the Coast Film and Music Festival and helped produce both Trilogy films. “We did trips to Peru, Indo and a few other spots. Beyond the surfing, Taylor also does an amazing job telling the stories about who these surfers are.”
More screening dates for Trilogy: New Wave are now in the works for this summer. The film will be released globally across digital platforms in September 2024.
Jake Howard is a local surfer and freelance writer who lives in San Clemente. A former editor at Surfer magazine, The Surfer’s Journal and ESPN, today he writes for several publications, including Picket Fence Media, Surfline and the World Surf League. He also works with philanthropic organizations such as the Surfing Heritage and Culture Center and the Positive Vibe Warriors Foundation.