5 Documentaries You Should Watch After War On Waste (2/5)

North of the Sun (2012) by Jørn Nyseth Ranum, Inge Wegge

This is a must-see for everyone who’s lived near the sea. And everyone else!

By watching this documentary you might be risking:

  • Catching a cold
  • Booking a flight to Norway
  • Joining a local conservation volunteer group
  • Wanting to learn how to surf, like, RIGHT NOW

If you’re not sure about this movie yet, the following lines will definitely convince you.

Two friends from a film school (Jorn, 25 and Inge, 28) decide to take some basic video-making gear and make an adventure film about surfing near the shores of an Arctic island off the northern coast of Norway. If the combination of Norway, the Arctic and water makes you feel like taking a hot shower, for these guys it means an ultimate adventure in order to experience extreme surfing on waves they don’t have to share with anyone. Living off expired food (which you get in Norway for free) and warmth from a makeshift oven, they surf in the icy cold ocean, snowboard, stargaze and learn how to survive with what they find on the beach.

The movie gets an environmental twist when Jorn and Inge have to face the impact of humans on this isolated place. Every day the ocean washes out a new batch of rubbish on the beach. They intuitively start collecting it and in total, clear 3 tonnes of garbage off the beach. In only 46 minutes the movie pinpoints a highly upsetting contrast between the pristine isolated island and the junk piling up on its shores with every high tide.

The message could have been: “Don’t litter”, but it’s actually: “If you see rubbish where it doesn’t belong, just pick it up”. And it doesn’t need to be on a special clean-up day because every day is the right one to get some rubbish off the bush/forest/beach/park…

Watch the trailer here: