Band Reunites for Festival’s 50th Anniversary Celebration of the Iconic Film Headlining Sunday’s Laguna Legends Filmmaker Showcase
(Laguna Beach, CA – October 21, 2002) – Coast Film & Music Festival (CFMF) and MacGillivray Freeman Films (MFF) are thrilled to announce that there’ll be a special 50th Anniversary screening of the heralded surf film Five Summer Stories on the evening of Sunday November 13th – an unmissable Laguna Beach event that promises to be historic in every way. Watch trailer here.
Unforgettably, the showing of the film, which will headline CFMF’s Sunday Laguna Legends Filmmaker Showcase, will be accompanied by a once-in-a-lifetime performance by Laguna Beach’s legendary band Honk. During select scenes of the movie – shown on a giant LED screen – Honk will play several of the original songs featured on the movie’s soundtrack.
“We’re ecstatic that festival goers will get the chance to relive that magical summer of ’72 when this classic film, deemed ‘the greatest surf movie ever made,’ was first released,” said Ben Warner, CFMF co-founder and executive producer. “I couldn’t be prouder that Greg MacGillivray and MacGillivray Freeman Films have been such an integral part of Coast Film & Music Festival from the beginning. This is going to be a night to remember.”
During Sunday’s evening program, Honk band members Steve Wood, Tris Imboden, Beth Fitchet Wood, Richard Stekol and Craig Buhler, and filmmaker Greg MacGillivray, will share stories about making the film’s hit soundtrack and its impact on a generation of young surfers.
The former editor of Surfer magazine Sam George will moderate the conversation. Immediately following, Greg MacGillivray will sign copies of his new visual memoir, Five Hundred Summer Stories, which will be released to the public on November 15th. Legendary surfers Gerry “Mr. Pipeline” Lopez, Jericho Poppler and Herbie Fletcher are just a few of the celebrity attendees coming to show their support.
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 the music by Honk and the Beach Boys was critical to the film’s overall success.”
Five Summer Stories first premiered in 1972 at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium and was quickly deemed “the greatest surf film ever made.” It became an instant hit and cultural touchstone from a truly watershed era and raised the surf film art form to a new level, essentially setting the genre’s artistic standards for the next two decades. Powered by music from the Beach Boys and local Laguna Beach band Honk, the film’s soundtrack inspired a generation with its evocation of the Southern California beach lifestyle.
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.
Time: 6pm to 10pm. Doors open at 5pm.
To purchase tickets, visit the Coast Film Festival’s event page.
About Coast Film & Music Festival
Founded in 2019, the annual Coast Film & Music Festival showcases adventure and nonfiction films, art, live music, and panel discussions with filmmakers, environmentalists, and professional activist-athletes whose breakthrough activities are celebrated through the power of film. Their inspiring stories of resilience and courage, captured as they face challenges on mountains and deserts and oceans, are curated to entertain, inform, and motivate attendees to push personal boundaries and be better stewards of the planet. And lots of live music too! CoastFilmFestival.com.