TEDxBasqueCountry - Taki Bibelas - The Still Point November 5, 2011

Taki Bibelas
Filmaker, photographer

"The Still Point"

Athens-born surfer/photographer Taki Bibelas instills his Mediter­ranean sen­si­bil­ity to his film projects. Whether shoot­ing fash­ion pho­tog­ra­phy or work­ing on his new surf film The Still Point, Taki brings to the frame his strong sense of color and light.

The Still Point started in my head years ago. I was spend­ing all my free week­ends in Geuthary, France and got to know Miki Dora. One day, he invited me to a din­ner meet­ing he had with Stacy Per­alta and Agi Orsi, who just made Dog­town and Z-Boys. They wanted to make a movie about Miki. He kept say­ing that a movie about him shouldn't be a surfer movie— there was or he had another story to tell. Later, I said, if I ever made a film about surf­ing, I wouldn't want any surf­ing in it. Miki was really sick and knew he was dying; the movie never got made. I did take a por­trait of him for Vogue just after. I think he liked that and wanted to leave some­thing behind.

That idea of a surf film to show a true mean­ing of surf with­out show­ing surf­ing stuck in my mind and I set off to shoot Polaroids, super 8, 16mm and record audio in Cal­i­for­nia, Hawaii and, later, Aus­tralia. The name The Still Point comes from some lines in the T.S. Eliot poem "Burnt Norton":

At the still point of the turn­ing world. Nei­ther flesh nor flesh­less;
Nei­ther from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But nei­ther arrest nor move­ment. And do not call it fix­ity,
Where past and future are gath­ered. Nei­ther move­ment from nor towards,
Nei­ther ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.

It described my feel­ing of surf­ing. I began to under­stand from the incred­i­ble peo­ple I met that the true spirit of surf­ing was the water ... the ocean. I began to ask the ques­tion, "Is the ocean alive?" It lead me to set­ting up the film the way it is—like a poem, a film about every­thing and noth­ing, a film about water, the ocean and life as seen though the eyes of some very insight­ful surf­ing per­son­al­i­ties. There is very lit­tle surf­ing in the film, but we really feel it.

Quote coming soon

- -

An emoticon () is a pictorial representation of a facial expression using punctuation marks and letters, usually written to express a person's mood. Emoticons are often used to alert a responder to the tenor or temper of a statement, and...

More from Wikipedia »

Tags:

Top 10 categories

1. 1.Movies
2. 2.Comedians
3. 3.Athletes & Coaches
4. 4.U.S. Presidents
5. 5.Entrepreneurs
6. 6.Musicians
7. 7.Scientists
8. 8.Religious Leaders
9. 9.Historical Figures
10. 10.Explorers