In ten days’ time, as part of the Paris Olympic Games, the eyes of the world will be on Teahupo’o, a wave considered by many to be one of the most beautiful to surf. This is not without its share of worries in the local community, such as Tahurai Henry and Gilbert Teave, two local prodigies in the discipline. They express their fears alongside Tim Mckenna, a photographer who has been documenting this little paradise for over 25 years, in “Children of Teahupo’o”. This superb 34-minute documentary has received six international festival nominations, including two awards for Best Documentary, and can now be viewed free of charge.
“When people talk about the Olympics in Teahupo’o, they’re talking about something grand, so immediately the feeling I get is one of enormous fear for our little village,” confides young Tahurai Henry in this superb documentary, whose images and pace are gripping. “The Olympics are going to show the whole world that this is a little piece of paradise, and that scares me. People are going to come to Teahupo’o and start thinking about business and hotels, and that’s exactly what we don’t want. We don’t want that, we want to remain a small village, we want to keep our authenticity. Well-founded fears, when you see the initial work undertaken to host the surfing event at the 2024 Olympic Games.
Indeed, how can we imagine that this small village where, between ocean and river, life flows slowly and simply, will emerge unscathed from hyper-mediatization? Especially since the announcement of Teahupo’o as the venue for the event three years ago, tourist boats have been crowding offshore to watch the world’s best surfers take on the mythical wave. These are just some of the questions addressed by this film, one of whose merits, and not the least, is to show us the daily lives of local surfers who, like Tahurai Henry, live as close as possible to the ocean, a vital universe for them.
Link to the YouTube video: https://www.outside.fr/film-children-of-teahupoo-menace-sur-le-petit-paradis-polynesien/
Source: Outside
