Jack Johnson may be best known these days for his chilled-out folk tunes, but his connection to surfing runs deep. Those roots are on full display in his new documentary, SURFILMUSIC.
Premiering at South by Southwest (SXSW) on Friday, March 13, the movie is an intimate look at Johnson’s path from surfer to filmmaker, to musician. Director Emmett Malloy weaves together footage from early surf films, home movies and present-day interviews. It also features a bevy of surfing greats, including Kelly Slater, Rob Machado, and the Malloy Brothers.
The film also contains a heartfelt tribute to a fallen surfing great. Johnson dedicated SURFILMUSIC to the memory of Tamayo Perry, the Hawaiian waterman and surfing legend who was tragically killed by a shark off the coast of Oahu in 2024. Johnson and Perry were lifelong friends, and the pair appeared together in Johnson’s 2000 surf film Thicker Than Water.
“When I first heard the news of losing Tamayo, I think that you start trying to remember the last time you hung out, or things that were said or just wondering whether you were able to say goodbye,” says Johnson in the film. “Every time you’d be together, he’d give you a big hug and say he loved you and he was so present through his whole life.” Johnson added that his entire peer group “learned how to be a better friend by having him in our life.”
