Cleveland Surf Documentary Coming to Santa Barbara

Award Winning Film “Out of Place” Will Make its California Premier at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Show times are 1pm at Santa Barbara Museum of Art on Saturday, February 13th and the Victoria Hall Theatre at 10am Sunday, February 14th.

SANTA BARBARA CA JANUARY 27 2010. Vince Labbe loves surfing. Twice he left for Hawaii for the allure of perfect waves and twice he’s ended up back in Ohio. But any time the storms across Lake Erie he is still surfing. And if you look past the small waves and arctic weather he may be on to something.

Despite the lack of the postcard perfect weather and waves that make the surfing image a billion dollar industry, there exists a kind of welcoming, throwback culture in Cleveland. “The common bond is the passion for life on the water,” says Vince. “In many ways, it’s a lot like how California must have been in the 1940′s and 50′s where everyone knew each other, and you were just glad to see cars pull up to the beach with boards on the roof.”

The filmmakers are honored to be bringing Out of Place to California. “We’re overwhelmed…extremely glad to be showing for California audiences” said Co-Director Scott Ditzenberger. “Being invited to Santa Barbara and realizing the history of surfing culture here, it’s once in a lifetime…it all means so much to us.”

About the film: Out of Place is an insider’s perspective of the small underground community of surfers in Cleveland, Ohio. Theirs is a life of shared dedication for the water and to waves that rarely come. In the backdrop is a Great Lakes city trying to recover from a legacy of lost industry, lost jobs and a river polluted enough to catch fire. Still they persist despite harsh weather and gray skies. For them, the golden era of surfing is right now. And it’s happening on Lake Erie, five hundred miles from the nearest ocean.

Award Winner: Out of Place recently premiered at the New York Surf Film Festival, Tribeca Cinemas. There it won the Audience Award for Best Feature presented by Jet Blue and the Dominican Republic. The film has been a nine year project of Co-Directors Scott Ditzenberger and Darrin McDonald, Writer Tom Heinrich, Chris McIntosh and Editor/Producer Kurt Vincent.

This is the 25th anniversary of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. Please visit www.sbiff.org for ticket information and the film site at www.outofplacemovie.com.