While Captain Cook and his crew get credit for being the first Europeans to witness the act of surfing in 1779, more than a century prior, German merchant and adventurer Michael Hemmersam actually beat him to the punch. Watching kids in Ghana play in the sea in the 1640s, he described how parents would “tie their children to boards and throw them into the water.”
Ghana again appears in early European surf lit when in 1834 a man named James Alexander wrote, “From the beach, meanwhile, might be seen boys swimming into the sea, with light boards under their stomachs. They waited for a surf; and came rolling like a cloud on top of it.”
In 1887, a British adventurer described watching an African man named Sua “in his element, dancing up and down and doing fancy performances with the rollers, as if he had lived since his infancy as much in the water as on dry land.”
The stories go on an on through the 1960s, when filmmaker Bruce Brown, joined by surfers Robert August and Mike Hynson, showed up in Ghana as they were following the endless summer around the world. Which brings us to today and a new short film entitled “Justice Brothers.”
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The film details the decades-long story of Justice Kwofie and his friends as they overcome a fear of the ocean, teach themselves to surf from salvaged wooden planks, and went on to found a surf school and inspire change in their community.
“This film is a tribute to the resilience of the human spirit and the beauty of passing on knowledge from generation to generation,” filmmaker Kieran Hodges told SURFER. “Growing up in Busua, these young men transformed their curiosity for the ocean into a lifelong passion, despite having little to no resources.”
“Now, they’re teaching girls from their village the skills that they themselves fought to acquire—skills that offer freedom, independence, and a connection to the ocean that was once out of reach,” Hodges continues.
Located in Busua in Western Ghana, Kwofie’s surf school, which goes under two names, Justice Brother and Obibini Girls Surf Club, is much more than a place to learn to surf. It’s an epicenter for empowerment and equality. It’s a beacon of hope and a profound example of the power surfing has to initiate positive change.
“Through this film, I wanted to capture not just the stunning visuals of surfing, but also the quieter, powerful moments of community and courage. This film is not just a story of surfing; but one of community, joy and hope,” Hodges surmises.