Interview with Bra Boys Director Sunny Abberton

Australian Surfer and First Time Director Discusses Hit Surfing Doc

Aug 26, 2008

Part 3: Director Sunny Abberton talks about his passion for storytelling, the Australian surfing community and what he hopes the audience will get from his film BRA BOYS.

How did you get the name Bra Boys?

Its just something that people have always been called from that area. We’re from Maroubra from ‘the bra’ so Bra Boys. It symbolises brotherhood and the last three letters of Maroubra and board riders association. Its like how you say 'hello' to each other to 'Yeah.. Bra'

HA HA I'm going to practice that...

Is this film a reaction to the negative picture painted in the media about the surfing community?

Yeah, I think it involves it. The only history of surfing in the library is who won the world title and what board they were riding. They've never really told that whole underbelly story of that whole surf movement and the clash between the authorities and that whole battle on the beaches and I think that's what we tried to get across. The whole story was localism and tribalism and there is a whole lot of issues in the film.

What motivated you to open yourself up like that? It’s a courageous thing to do to turn the camera on yourself!

Well… our story was the exact story of what I was going to show through another family and I was going to be prepared to put the camera on them and show it through their eyes. That's what I mean, we were already filming for six months when the murder happened and then we decided to show our story. So, in a sense it changed but it didn't really change. I was still going to show that whole struggle and the battle to overcome adversity and that's what we're basically hoping the film does. For the kids seeing it, it will let them know that no matter how bad it is at home, or what they're going through, if they can find an outlet to channel their anger and frustration, if that they can find a way out of it, then they can break that whole cycle. So, basically that's what the whole movie is about, from the start to the finish and lots of little scenes that I put in the movie symbolises this struggle

Who picked it up and how did it get released?

Hopscotch picked it up and that was really lucky. They liked it and it was really lucky that Russell Crowe came on board and we are just really lucky that he liked the film and said 'yep, I wanna be involved.'

It’s the first week, have you had really good reviews?

Yeah. we have! We've had a couple of really good ones. We got four stars off that Margaret and David

Oh! Margarette and David on the ABC's Movie Show?

Do you know what? They gave Woody Allen's latest movie ‘Scoop’ two and a half!

Yes, you beat Woody Allen!!

[Laughs] But actually we are the number three film in the country at the moment and we are only on like a fifth of the cinema's so we're pretty happy.

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