Category: Feature

 (Laguna Beach, CA—July 29, 2022) Adventure Entertainment continues to bring extraordinary stories to North American audiences this summer with MacGillivray Freeman Films (MFF), the world’s foremost independent producer of original giant-screen films for IMAX® theatres, and co-founder Greg MacGillivray’s 50^th Anniversary special release of the company’s digitally remastered classic surf documentary, “Five Summer Stories” (1972), widely considered the greatest surf film ever made, beginning on August 12^th. A cultural touchstone and time capsule from a truly watershed era when the world was at a critical crossroads, “Five Summer Stories” captures the state of surfing on the verge of creative transition, raising the surf film art form to a new level and setting the genre’s artistic standards for the next two decades. 

(Laguna Beach, CA—July 29, 2022) Adventure Entertainment continues to bring extraordinary stories to North American audiences this summer with MacGillivray Freeman Films (MFF), the world’s foremost independent producer of original giant-screen films for IMAX® theatres, and co-founder Greg MacGillivray’s 50^th Anniversary special release of the company’s digitally remastered classic surf documentary, “Five Summer Stories” (1972), widely considered the greatest surf film ever made, beginning on August 12^th. A cultural touchstone and time capsule from a truly watershed era when the world was at a critical crossroads, “Five Summer Stories” captures the state of surfing on the verge of creative transition, raising the surf film art form to a new level and setting the genre’s artistic standards for the next two decades. 

Adventure Entertainment will bring this beloved epic documentary to audiences theatrically across North America (U.S. and Canada) in cinemas in more than 50 markets. This 50^th Anniversary theatrical release is perfectly timed to coincide with the U.S. Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach, when surfing captures the imagination of viewers around the world. Filmmakers will be in attendance for Q&As at screening events in select markets, and community partnerships with the Surfrider Foundation, a grassroots nonprofit ocean conservation organization, as well as Quiksilver, a heritage surf brand, will support these events in select locations. Quiksilver will be releasing a limited edition t-shirt for the film’s release, available soon.

Says director Greg MacGillivray: “With Five Summer Stories, Jim and I sought to make a state-of-the-art surf film that would reflect the broader cultural shifts happening in the late 60s and early 70s, when youth culture was experimenting in so many creative ways and surfing was going through its own pivotal transition. The film really took the surfing world by storm, and I think today’s audiences will find it relevant and exciting in ways we couldn’t have imagined fifty years ago.”

“Five Summer Stories” first premiered in 1972 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium and was quickly deemed “the greatest surf film ever made.”  The film’s unusual format—a montage of five-plus stories or vignettes—perfectly captured a fractured era in which an explosion of creativity and revolutionary change was shaking down the old order, taking the sport of surfing off into new and unknown territory.  Although the film went through several (and increasingly popular) incarnations as it played in theaters over a seven-year span from 1972 to 1979, its fundamental story remained the same—that the pure, innocent joy of surfing was symbolic of humankind’s best possibilities on Earth without war or politics or environmental destruction.  The film features music by the Beach Boys and Honk.

Greg MacGillivray holds a very unique place in filmmaking history with a career that spans more than 60 years, first as an innovative filmmaker who revolutionized surf movies with classic surf documentaries like A Cool Wave of Color and Five Summer Stories with creative partner Jim Freeman, to working in Hollywood with such celebrated filmmakers as Stanley Kubrick on The Shining and on films like Big Wednesday, The Towering Inferno, Blade Runner, Jonathan Livingston Seagull and Koyaanisqatsi, then becoming a pioneer and champion of the 70mm IMAX® format and creator of some of the most iconic cinematography ever captured for giant screen films, including Everest, the highest-grossing IMAX film of all time.

"Five Summer Stories” is directed and produced by Greg MacGillivray and Jim Freeman, and photographed by MacGillivray, Freeman, Bud Browne (“Going Surfin’”) and George Greenough, with narration written by Drew Kampion and music composed by the 1970s rock/surf band Honk and featuring songs by the Beach Boys.