"Sombrio" is an hour-long documentary about the eviction of a diverse community of surfers and squatters that existed on the West Coast of Vancouver Island for more than thirty years.
It centers on a family with ten children who grew up surfing on the beach and captures them and other residents over a two-year period, revealing their personal stories and convictions as they come to terms with their impending eviction.
"Sombrio" presents a portrait of a vital subculture in BC’s history and challenges our notions of what it means to be a self-determined citizen.
Since the 1960s, Sombrio Beach, a picturesque paradise of rainforest and beach on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island, BC, has been home to a unique community of "squatters" living in a funky array of beach shacks.
A magnet for surfers, social misfits, those who simply wanted off the modern grid or to live a simpler life, the Sombrio community was an experiment in cooperation, anarchy, and self-sufficiency.
This ended in 1997 when the government evicted the squatters after integrating Sombrio beach into the greater Juan de Fuca provincial park.
Sombrio Beach is about a sense of place.
It brings together the threads of a sustainable lifestyle, history, and ownership of land, and the stories of creative individuals who dared to live by their passion, skills, and ingenuity away from the consumer world.
The images of the ocean are stunning, and the prowess of virtuoso surfers simply amazing. Carole Roy Ph.D. Instructor Canadian Studies Trent University.
Through rare and intimate interviews obtained through an established trust, combined with beautiful cinematography, "Sombrio" reveals a candid and poignant look at life, contemplation, and weighing of values in the globalized postmodern world.
Directed by Paul Manly.