"Waveriders" - the first feature documentary by director Joel Conroy, won the Audience Award at the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival following its premiere to a rapt audience on February 22, 2008.
In a pre-screening introduction, festival director Grainne Humphreys informed filmgoers that she could have sold out the event many times over - such was in the interest in this spectacular film about surfing on the northwest coast of Ireland.
Featuring renowned Irish, British and American surfers - Richie Fitzgerald, Gabe Davies, Kelly Slater, and the Malloy brothers, the film is the realization of a long term ambition by Dublin based Joel who teamed up with Derry producer Margo Harkin to make a cross border production on the spectacular nature of surfing in Ireland.
The story unfolds through the inspirational and ultimately tragic history of Irish/Hawaiian legendary waterman George Freeth, the son of an Irishman, who was responsible for the rebirth of this sport of Hawaiian kings in the early twentieth century.
The epic journey travels full-circle from Hawaii to California and back to Irish shores following Freeth's wave of influence.
The film reaches a spectacular climax when today's pioneers of big wave surfing conquer monster waves over fifty feet in the biggest swell ever to have been ridden off the Irish Atlantic coast, heralding the country's emergence as one of the world's top surf destinations.