To celebrate the 25th anniversaries of Mark Occhilupo’s 1999 ASP World Title and multi award winning film The Occumentary, legendary surf film maker Jack McCoy and Occhilupo will be hitting the east coast of Australia, and Warriewood gets its turn on Thursday August 22nd.
This will be the first time ever the film has been shown in cinemas on the big screen and to commemorate the event, McCoy has remastered the film to give it a complete new look.
Following his ‘hiatus’ from competitive surfing, Billabong founder, Gordon Merchant, sent Occhilupo to WA to live and train with McCoy and his family and begin the comeback of all comebacks. He shed 30kg, cleaned up his lifestyle and they began documenting Occhilupo’s journey back to the pinnacle of professional surfing.
The film was the first ever feature documentary of a surfer and instantly became a cult classic, with many still regarding it as one of the best surf movies ever produced. As with all of McCoy’s films, the soundtrack is next level and features the likes of the Foo Fighters, Ed Kuepper, Powderfinger and Yothu Yindi.
Throughout the tour, the audience will be treated with McCoy, Occhilupo and special guests will share untold stories and never seen before footage from Occhilupo’s career, as well as a Q and A session to delve deeper into this special moment in time.
Tickets available at: www.eventbrite.com.au/e/the-occumentary-25th-anniversary-warriewood-cinema-tickets
Marco Jay Luciano "Mark" Occhilupo was born on 16 June 1966 in Kurnell in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Occhilupo's father was Italian and his mother was originally from New Zealand. ‘Occy’ began surfing at the age of nine, at Cronulla.
He won his first amateur schoolboys' contest at just 13 and followed up with two Cadet State Titles. After the tenth grade, he left home as an ASP trialist. Virtually unnoticed, he advanced to the Top 16 at year's end and secured a seed for the following year.
By 1984, at age 17, Occhilupo's high performance standards took him to the top of the ASP ratings. At Jeffreys Bay, his powerful and aggressive style were an advantage in backside surfing. Occhilupo hovered around the top five in the rankings, and was becoming popular in the United States when Tom Curren was at the peak of his career. The two were rivals in surfing's biggest spectator event, the Op Pro, which Occhilupo won in 1985 after beating Curren in a three-heat final and again in the 1986 Op.
Aspiring to be an actor, Occhilupo played himself in the 1987 Hollywood Cult-Classic, North Shore.
The young surfer struggled with mental wellbeing and substance abuse during his years on the tour, and eventually, exhausted by his lifestyle, he threw a quarterfinal heat at the Op, headed home to Cronulla, and quit the World Tour.
Over the next several years, Occy made a couple of half-hearted comeback attempts and remained in the public eye as a repeating star of Jack McCoy's Billabong videos.
Jack filming an Occy snap
After reaching a weight of 111-kilos, he began a training program under McCoy in Western Australia that helped him shed 34 kilos and regained his form.
Occhilupo re-entered professional surfing in 1995, and after some major wins won the World Title in 1999 at age 33.
Jack McCoy started surfing when his family moved from Los Angeles to Hawaii in 1954. In the 1970s, he began experimenting with film and photography and, in 1976, released his first film, Tubular Swells, produced and directed with Australian photographer Dick Hoole.
This commenced what is a decades long run filming, directing, and producing classics of the surf genre including Storm Riders (1982), Kong’s Island (1983), Bunyip Dreaming (1990), The Green Iguana (1992), Sabotaj (1998), The Occumentary (1999), Blue Horizon (2004), Free as a Dog (2006), and A Deeper Shade of Blue (2012). Jack is renowned for his water cinematography.
To prelude what is set to be a brilliant celebration of surfing, a quick chat with Jack from earlier this week.
Who will be the Speakers at the Warriewood screening of The Occumentary?
Mark Occhilupo, myself and Tom Carroll, who will introduce us then join us after the screening of the movie for a questions and answers session.
Where were you born Jack?
Los Angeles, California.
You lived in Avalon Beach for over two decades and were beside the ocean over in Western Australia – have you always been beside the sea?
Yeah, pretty much. My family moved to Hawaii when I was quite young, and I was always by the water. When I came to Australia in 1970 I was given a residency visa, and that allowed me to stay. In 2004 when America elected George Bush I went down to the consulate and applied to become an Australian citizen as well. So now I have dual citizenship, for Australia and America. I consider myself now to be more of an Australian than an American.
Your film subjects – do you choose them or do they choose you?
I choose what to focus on. When I made my first surf movie it was after distributing surf movies for many years, so I kind of knew the template of what was required.
For my first film I focussed on Australian surfers and Hawaiian surfers, Californian surfers and surfers who were from South Africa.
I would pick the guys who I liked to work with; some liked to work, some didn’t – some suffers are pretty lazy. I have chosen all the surfers I preferred to work with in my films and this has included all the great surfers of 5 or 6 generations of surfing – 50 years.
Occy’s great comeback – how did that eventuate?
What happened was Occy was a child surf star, and never had a chance to have a childhood. At one point he had a bit of a breakdown about where he was at and what he was doing. He spent 3 years literally not surfing and just watching tv. His sponsor, Gordon Merchant gave him a salary during that period because Gordon was the first one to sponsor him as a young kid. It got to a point where he said ‘well, how long is he going to be on the couch?’ – and so he said to Occy, ‘do you want to get back?’ to which he replied ‘I don’t know if I can’.
So Gordon then suggested he come and stay with me and my family. So he came to us for a couple of months and we fed him well, we trained him, and I also spent time as a mentor trying to help him gain his confidence back and see it could happen. I could tell, even though he was big, his surfing was still incredible.
During that period of time he lost a lot of weight, he came back from the west and got back into it. We then ran an event called ‘the Billabong Challenge’, which allowed us to invite the best surfers in the world to take part – we had 8 surfers, and this was a sort of template for what they call the dream tour now. Back then they used to have a surf contest at 2 o’clock in the afternoon regardless of what the surf conditions were. Gordon felt that surfers need to be seen on good waves, so we took the best surfers with Occy to the desert and ran a little event. Occy ended up being able to mix it with the best; with Kelly Slater, Rob Machado, Sonny Garcia and a few free surfers.
He then went to a contest at Bells Beach, which was a speciality event that had never been done before. This event was when you rode a wave and you kept riding in a heat with another guy until you caught a wave that you wanted the judges to score. When you finished your ride you raised your hand. It’s never been done since but it was quite a unique little event.
Occy won 11 heats in a row, 55 thousand dollars and a car. He thought, ‘well, I’m dong pretty good here’ and went on tour again. Th first year he was on tour again he came 2nd to Kelly Slater. He was on a roll. The following year, he won.
This was a great comeback story.
What are your favourite breaks in the world?
I have lung disease now so I don’t surf anymore. One of my favourites when I surfed was Garagajan in Indonesia. This was an experience unlike any other in surfing. At the time when I was going there you had to take all your own food and water, and we were only allowed 10 permits. I’d go over there with just a few friends for around 10 years. It’s the most incredible wave – but you’re also on the edge of a jungle, so it’s quite adventurous and exotic and a surfer heaven type of place.
I loved surfing anywhere there was a decent wave, I was more than happy to go anywhere, but my favourite was Garagajan.
In Australian breaks terms I really like Lennox Head and Broken Head.
What is your ‘motto for life’ or a favourite phrase you try to live by?
You know I’m an American Indian, I have Choctaw in me. One of the things I learned about Choctaw is they have a little philosophy that I’ve tried to live by:
Something to do, Someone to love, and Something to look forward to.
What is your favourite place in Pittwater and why?
Clareville. When I first came to Australia I always took houses on the Pacific side and then my wife and I moved to the northern beaches in 1999 and she found a house overlooking Pittwater. It was something so new and different, and we lived there for 25 years or so. This was the most calming and reflective water. That’s what drew me to the area; that really was my joy. I’d just come home and sit there for lunch and would have to wake myself up to go back to work because it was so calming.
Jack McCoy
Jack McCoy at work
The Occumentry Tour
Thursday, August 22 Warriewood Cinema
Saturday, August 24 Randwick Ritz
Wednesday, August 28 Arts Margaret River
Friday, August 30 Luna Palace - Perth
Saturday, August 31 Gage Road Brewing Co - Fremantle
Book in here for dates outside Pittwater: www.jackmccoy.com/occy-tour
