Mounted to his living room wall, above a leather couch, is a Gerry Lopez (the Kelly Slater of the 70’s) retro singlefin, diamond tail shortboard. With its signature elongated lightning bolt in a faded blue-green, this board—once his dad’s—is the surfboard Matt Evans first stood up on, while balancing between the sand and sea.
When Evans was about eight years old, he began skateboarding with the rest of his friends. Around age 12, his dad took him to visit family in Wilmington, bringing with him the surfboard from his own youth.
After reaching the beach, Evans’ father set his son on his old board and pushed him into his first wave.
“Surfing was just the natural progression,” Evans said, of skateboarding on land to surfing in the water.
Evans—a Jacksonville, N.C. native—said Wilmington and Wrightsville have always been his second homes, because of the many visits he took to see family there.
So when the time came to choose a college, there was no question. Wilmington felt like home and boasted a film school with a killer rep. The University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) it was.
But Evans didn’t begin experimenting with film like so many other UNCW students, who see the major as merely a fun route to a degree. Evans began his film career as a novice.
He said he found an old 8mm under his parent’s bed when he was 14.
It took about three extension cords to handle the massive 80s camera, which had to be plugged in. But Evans did what he could with the device to record himself and his friends skateboarding. He said he did the editing the old-fashioned way, with two VCRs and a CD player to add music.
In high school, Evans said he made feature length skateboard flicks each of his first three years, and always kept a stash of them in his backpack. If class wrapped up a little early, he’d ask teachers to pop in the film; and they did—in band, English and history.
After school, he’d pass them around to share with his peers.
In September 2008, before graduating from UNCW with a second degree in business (his first was in film studies), Evans became the owner and operator of his own film business, SENC (South Eastern North Carolina) Films, LLC.
The soon-to-be 24 year old, who has been surfing nearly half of his life and shooting reels almost as long, was lucked into a network through a series of surf friends, who linked him up with his first documentary. Recently completed, it is set to premiere March 18.
The documentary follows Ocean Cure, a charity surf camp owned by IndoJax Surf School of Wrightsville and Carolina beaches, for everyone from the autistic, blind, paraplegic, diabetic, AIDS sufferers, wounded soldiers—you name it.
“Surfing Through Barriers,” shows just that: how people of all backgrounds face their own challenges and, on top of the waves, find peace within themselves.
“It’s all right to explain to people … but if they can actually see it or hear firsthand how much it has, say, impacted my son’s life…changed my entire family…it’s to help the viewers understand and to get past the surfing stigma,” Evans explained.
Evans spent almost the entire year with the Ocean Cure crew, from day one of the first camp (Special Olympics in March 2009). He shot more than 30 hours of footage. Of that, he narrowed and edited it down to a 43-minute film. Evans is now sharing a part of the Ocean Cure motto: You. Me. We.
A year and a half ago, Evans learned that his Lopez board was just a generic that his dad had painted to look like the real thing. Even if surfing appears to be one thing—anyone who has experienced it firsthand or watched Ocean Cure participants can see there’s something truly authentic about standing up on water, no matter your name, challenges or the brand of board you ride.
