Kelly Slater paddling

World Champion surfer, Kelly Slater has concluded the principal photography for the new Ultimate Wave Tahiti Movie that is due to premiere early next month.

It’s the first 3D film for IMAX® theaters to capture intensity of Tahiti’s famed Teahupoo break.

Kelly Slater and a group of friends arrive in Tahiti. With their host, Tahitian surfer Raimana Van Bastolaer and will seek out the best waves breaking on the reef at the famed surf site Teahupo’o. Kelly and Raimana share a passion for the waves, but different ideas about what surfing means: is it a modern competitive sport or an ancient Polynesian wave-riding art?

Either way, if the right conditions arise, they hope to surf some unique giant barrels created by storm swells breaking atop the shallow reef.

As the surfer’s quest unfolds, the film explores the hidden forces at work shaping the waves and the islands that lie in their path. In stylized animated segments, the audience is propelled into the cosmos to discover the sources of a wave’s energy; and then back to Earth to witness the swirling dance of the atmosphere that will transfer energy deep into the ocean and shape a wave’s long journey across thousands of miles of open Pacific.

Kelly and Raimana consider what makes a great surfing wave. In an extended surfing sequence showcasing Kelly and Raimana, we see the magic of high-performance surfing on modest breakers.

Raimana muses that

you don’t have to chase the perfect wave; if you are patient, it will come to you

He swims across the reef, through the waves — around him are dolphins and humpback whales and the wide Pacific.

The Ultimate Wave Tahiti Movie premiers in Los Angeles on February 12th but we hope it won’t be too long before they bring to an IMAX cinema near you!.