JERSEY’S skating and surfing scene is set to take centre stage in a coming-of-age short film.
The brainchild of identical twins Emily and Bethany Cornelius, Always Towards the Ocean follows 17-year-old twins Peggy and Lucy-Jean spending their final summer of school skating and surfing around the Island.
Loosely based on their own experiences, UK-based producers Emily and Bethany – who between them have worked on hit TV shows including Slow Horses, Heartbreaker, Star Wars: Andor – said they wanted to showcase the “best that Jersey has to offer”.
The pair have a shared love of skateboarding since a trip to Venice Beach in 2014, while Emily’s passion for surfing grew when she moved to the Island in 2017 and lived here for several years.
The project has award-winning Jersey director Becky Coley on board, with Natalie Mayer supervising the Jersey-side production and Fred Mayer as Jersey skateboarding consultant.
Emily, who trained as a lawyer with Ogier in Jersey, said: “Our love for this world started when we first got into skateboarding after visiting Venice Beach in 2014, and then surfing when I moved to Jersey in 2017.
“That blend of the beautiful Jersey sunsets with a laid-back, So-Cal aesthetic really inspired our visual style. The skateboarding community has had a huge influence on our lives, as well as on the values of our film, which celebrates community and sisterhood.
“Becky is equally in the perfect position to lead the creative vision of this project as Becky is not only a mother of twins, but she’s also deeply involved in the Jersey creative community through the Jersey Surf Film Festival and the 13th Parish Film Festival, and she’s currently touring with her latest surfing feature documentary feature Point of Change.”
They are now looking to cast its leading twins for the film and have recently launched a crowdfunding campaign to help finance the project.
Emily said: “We’re passionate about telling authentic stories both on and off camera, and we’ve taken great care to build the right creative team. It’s also very important to us to highlight the best that Jersey has to offer, from showcasing local talent and businesses, to creating opportunities for local people to get involved where possible.”
Bethany added: “‘While the film is very much a fiction – it’s strongly inspired by personal themes and loves my twin sister and I share. Emily and I grew up on an island, got into skating through Grlswirl in our early 20s, and fell in love with Jersey when Emily lived, trained and subsequently learned to surf here.
“We felt it’s the perfect setting for this film, given the thriving island life and surf/skate community. Jersey reflects our experience of island life growing up and is a physical representation of the character’s potential separation – but above all it holds a unique cinematic quality that we want to share with the world. It also gives us a wonderful excuse to keep returning and to continue to collaborate with the many creative talents on the Island in its growing creative industry.’
The Kickstarter campaign can be found here.
