Wild Goat Surf

It’s 2003, and 12-year-old Rell “Goat” Barrel (Shayelin Martin) and her mom Jane (Caitlyn Sponheimer) are scheming and scrounging their way through another Penticton summer. Having illegally sublet the house they’re renting; they’re now holed up in a RV park bordering Skaha Lake. From this modest base of operations, Goat befriends an awkward outsider (Leandro Guedes), skateboards, shoplifts, and talks a big game about becoming a world-class surfer… Despite having never actually climbed atop a board or laid eyes on the ocean.

Helming her debut feature, Sponheimer conspires with cinematographer Joseph Schweers and composer Cayne McKenzie to transform the Okanagan Valley into a majestic, almost mythical backdrop for this tale of a young girl trying to slip the shackles of circumstance. Skilfully subverting expectations at practically every turn, a story of grand ambitions draws its persuasive power from chance encounters, casual exchanges, and instances in which summer lethargy cedes to adolescent rebellion.