Dakar Dream

Senegal's surf scene is ready to be found

Dakar, Senegal, is a peninsula at the very tip of West Africa, a city wrapped in surf spots on every side. When one coast goes flat, the other pops off. Nobody here has ever waited for a season. In 1966, Bruce Brown carried The Endless Summer to the reef off Ngor, and the wave has worn the film's name ever since. What that footage never showed was the scene growing up around it. Sixty years later, it runs four generations deep. Dakar's surfers aren't discovering surfing. They've been at it for four generations, and the scene has grown a style of its own, pulled from the color, rhythm, and hustle of Senegalese life. It doesn't look like California. It doesn't look like Australia. It looks like Dakar. The film follows three locals chasing what's next. Unlimited waves, limited resources, and no intention of waiting for permission. We hear them the way their friends do: through their own voice notes, narrating their world in real time.

Director

Alexander "AV" Volberding