The brothers who surfed in the Falklands as a bridge of the brotherhood – 01/04/2019

When they come out of the 4×4 truck, the wind makes their blond hair move like a whirlpool. They walk with the boards to a barrier, look at the sea in the distance and immediately understand that they will not be able to surf. Not because there are no waves but because the red sign is clear in the message in white letters: "Danger Mines". One of the many minefields still dormant in the Falklands, 37 years after the war between Argentina and Britain, is insurmountable wherever you are. Joaquín and Julián Azulay will have to look for other waves in the damp southern cold.

The brothers did not remain motionless for the 50 days they were in the islands and they had the pleasure of surfing in places never explored also pbadionate about the all-new Olympic sport in Tokyo in 2020. This research and the idea of ​​being at sea with Jay and Sean Moffat, surfer brothers living in the Falklands, generated "The wave without borders" ("Sharp waves"), the film that will debut this Friday at 19:30 and 22:00 at the Teatro Santa María (Montevideo 842, tickets gauchosdelmar.com/es/eventos) and who will visit the country and festivals in Europe, with the end goal of a function in Puerto Argentino. Demonstrate that sport, like art, can be a bond of union even with a conflict so close to the surface.

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Children of one of the surf pioneers in Argentina, they searched for waves since their small size and set up the project eight years ago. "Gauchos del Mar": Browse countries to surf, interact with different cultures and document them in movies.

In his first movie They got off in a pickup truck from a beach near Los Angeles at their home in this country. In the second, they roam the Chilean and Argentine Patagonia before embarking for the island states. The third trip lasted 53 days on foot in the Tierra del Fuego peninsula. And then they went to Africa for a documentary in production. But Malvinas is special.

"It cost us a lot of logistics, because they gave us permission to film 48 hours before traveling, but once we walked on the islands, everyone knew we were & # 39; those of the movie & # 39;. It's like a big closed neighborhood or a big country of 2,800 inhabitants where everyone knows each other. It cost us to enter many rooms with surfing coasts, but our behavior has opened the doors, "said Joaquín, 31, a business administration graduate who came to play football in Chacarita.

It is not the same for an Argentine to intervene on the Falkland Islands rather than on another territory. "There is tension and distance. We experienced them in the first messages with the Moffat brothers, because everything was fine, but when we told them that we were Argentinian, they suddenly did not respond. They did not want to participate in a film project because of the war. We understood his position and our idea was always to arrive at his level and generate a friendship, a dialogue, a bridge to discuss", Explains Julian, a 33-year-old architect.

But where there were wounds, the scars are hard to heal. "We did not talk to people about the war, because we did not want to address the issue of sovereignty. Our idea was to unite with sport"Explains Joaquin." This problem does not concern us either, because we belong to another generation and they live it in a narrow way. Above the Moffat brothers come from a family of hard wing and Argentineans who become friends can generate that they "double them on the island" and remain alone", Julian adds.

Watch "The wave without borders" is a way to admire the harsh beauty of the Falkland Islands. A wonderful natural territory, captured in stunning images both with a drone and in the "tunnel" of a wave traversed by the plateau.

The joint production of Gauchos del Mar and Caudillo Cine has visual impacts on each beach with penguins, octopuses, albatrosses and elephant seals. In each encounter with local inhabitants, either in shearing sheep or in demining the fields or in the stays of the eternal hectares that welcome the Azulay brothers. Some, like those of Ana Robertson, take a day to arrive.

There is tension in a flight that seems too fragile in a box with propellers and on the sailboat Mago del Sur, which transports them through the furious waves to improbable coasts. Up to the pleasure of surfing where no one has done it. Total, there is no wear that is solved with a good plate of noodles tuco.

But there are also trenches, cemeteries, rusty debris since 1982, peat, silence, respect for life lived. The reflection is Julián: "What happened was great. When you're there, in the trenches, you can imagine what the ill-equipped soldiers had to undergo in this damp cold. It must have been very brave. "

– Did you have the impression that the message of union through sport came during this trip?

-Julián: The sea puts everyone on the same plane. The sea belongs to everyone and belongs to no one. In the water, you are at the same level, sharing a nice moment to leave another message possible.

-Joaquín: The sea unites the continents. And today, it is our only link with the islands, because we are neighbors and we continue without dialogue. That's why we wanted to encourage us to get closer to our deck: surfing.

The film will tell what happened between the Azulay brothers and Moffat. Why advance what can be seen? In the end, the emotion will also come in English, when Sonia Felton, before hugging Joaquin in her room, says to her: "We must be kind to each other, for we are one. The man makes the borders. If we had no borders, there would not be so many problems"Does that sound naïve to you?" Lennon has already sung it: "You can say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one".