Savage Waters is a stunning and intimate portrait of modern adventurers as they follow clues left in a 19th century treasure-hunter’s journal to find and ride a mythical wave in some of the most dangerous waters of the Atlantic.
This dramatic documentary has won several awards including Best British Film at the London Surf Film Festival, UK; Best Documentary at the Wales International Film Festival, UK; Best Documentary, Best Soundtrack and Jury’s Special Mention for Best Cinematography at the Richard Harris International Film Festival, Ireland; Best Documentary Feature, Best Director and Film of the Festival at the Liverpool Film Festival, UK and Best Picture at the 42nd Paladino d’Oro Sport Film Festival, Italy.
Savage Waters has already had several screenings at The London Surf Film Festival as the Opening Gala film; The Cinecity Brighton Film Festival, UK; The Kendal Mountain Festival, UK; The 42nd Paladino D’Oro Sport Film Festival, Palermo, Italy; The Central Scotland Documentary Film Festival, Stirling, Scotland; The International Maritime Film festival, Maine, US; Docutah International Documentary Film Festival, Utah, USA; Liverpool Film Festival, UK as the opening night film; Austin Film Festival, Texas, USA; The Richard Harris International Film Festival, Limerick, Ireland; Byron Bay International Film Festival, Australia; San Diego International Film Festival, California, USA; Fresh Coast Film Festival, Michigan, USA; Doctober, Washington, USA; Port Townsend Film Festival, Washington, USA; The Korea International Ocean Film Festival, Busan, Korea; Big Sound International Film Festival, Ontario, Canada; Doc Edge Festival, New Zealand and the California Film Institute Doclands Documentary Film Festival, USA as opening night film in May 2022.
Additionally, it has been selected for the upcoming Bilbao Mendi Film festival, Spain.
Directed by Mikey Corker (Beneath the Surface) and produced by Ghislaine Couvillat (Girls Can’t Surf, The Quest for Nature, Against the Tides) for production company Whipped Sea, Savage Waters is filmed in Ireland, the UK, Portugal, the Savage Islands, Madeira, the Azores and the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.
Jonathan Ford, Managing Director at AMR comments, “We are delighted that this breath-taking feature documentary, with its jaw-dropping cinematography, has been so popular and selected for screening at several high-profile festivals.”
Ghislaine Couvillat from Whipped Sea said: “We are proud of the audience’s reaction to Savage Waters and the multiple awards the film has received at prestigious festivals around the world, especially recognising the incredible cinematography and beautiful score which accompany the Savage Waters’ enthralling narrative of resilience, love and survival”.
Narrated by the legendary Charles Dance (The Crown, Games of Thrones, Gosford Park), the ‘Savage Waters’ quest was inspired by The Cruise of the ‘Alerte’, a real treasure hunt journal written by E.F. Knight and published as an adventure book in the late 19th century, which has motivated a captivating journey to seek out and surf a mythical, never-ridden wave in some of the most remote and dangerous waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
For renowned skipper, Matt Knight, sailing to unpredicted and uncharted regions is impossible to resist. As a lifelong thrill-seeker, he is constantly testing the limits of what’s possible, something world-class big wave surfer Andrew Cotton has also built his career on.
With family and friends, they board the beautiful catamaran Hecate and follow clues to this ‘perfect wave’, but not everything goes to plan, with serious injury and life-threatening challenges testing the crew’s resilience and attitudes towards risk.