Femme Ocean & Annika von Schütz

Femme Ocean is a project by Annika von Schütz that is very close to Oy's heart. Why? Because we pursue very similar goals. Femme Ocean puts female surfers at the centre of the story and portrays a wide variety of strong women and their life stories. In doing so, they place great value on community and on making sure that other women and girls with similar passions can have role models. To support this wonderful project, Oy produced a T-shirt. Do you want to support Femme Ocean too? The T-shirt is available in the online shop now.

How the project came about

Femme Ocean came about for many reasons. On one hand, out of Annika's own passion and fascination with the freedom the ocean brings. On the other, she wanted to raise awareness about many issues. On her travels she often noticed that in many countries there were hardly any local female surfers. Why was that? She also wanted to highlight how difficult it is to find sponsors as a professional female surfer, and how unfair it is that women receive far less prize money at surf contests — with the exception of the WSL since 2019.

Female surfers from all over the world fight for their dreams and are seeing more and more results from the push for equality. It's important to have strong, authentic and assertive women that women and girls can identify with, because women now make up an ever-growing part of the international surfing community. Surfing can also be seen as a means of empowering women, because in the water we take risks. We trust nature. While surfing we build courage and carry it back to land, into our communities and beyond. For this reason, Annika of "Femme Ocean" set off on a journey from Portugal to Sri Lanka to meet women who walk their very own path.

The goal of the documentary

Femme Ocean focuses above all on the deeper insights of a passion for surfing and shows an authentic picture far removed from any clichés. In total, five very personal 10-minute portraits of international female surfers are shown. Among them are both professional athletes and free surfers. They could hardly be more different in terms of age, social background, religion, varied backgrounds and professions. Yet they all have one thing in common: they are pioneers, they stand up for the environment, and they are independent, risk-taking and strong women. Their goal is to share their passion for the sea and for their personal life projects with the world.

Femme Ocean is not a typical surf film, but one that is meant to make you think and serves as an interface between social projects and workshops. Annika is planning retreats designed to help people leave their comfort zone and feel at home in their bodies. Topics such as trauma are addressed as well. She also organises projects such as swimming lessons for children in Sri Lanka.

Behind the scenes

Annika v. Schütz holds a Master of Arts in Media and works as a director and film producer. She was born in Germany but feels at home all over the world. She has long worked in theatre, television and film festivals in Berlin, and her award-winning documentary "Set up to sell – Surfing as a lifestyle product" (2018) led her to Europe's Atlantic coast. It was there that she also launched "Femme Ocean," which was funded by LAC, Laboratório Actividades Criativas, in Lagos. Of all places, it was in the sea that she suffered two serious accidents during the three years of filming. This did not weaken her motivation, however — if anything, it strengthened it. She continues to live in Portugal and, thanks to her large network in the international surf scene, is always in contact with interesting female surfers, surf journalists and environmental activists from all over the world.

Behind Annika there is also a whole team of professional photographers and filmmakers, editors and designers, passionate surfers and travel enthusiasts from around the world. And of course "les femmes," the faces of the documentary. Valerie Schlieper is the designer of the logo. Annika and Valerie have known each other since their school days and the two started surfing together in 2004.

The film's release

The world premiere took place on 9 July at the international Surf Film Festival in Anglet, France. In Portugal the film comes out on 29 July, and from 5–10 September it will be shown at the US premiere at the Women's Surf Film Festival in New York. They are still waiting to hear back from other film festivals and will hopefully be in Zurich in November.

For even more information, visit Femme Ocean on their website or on Instagram. Annika is also currently running a crowdfunding campaign, since she is shouldering the project herself and could really use the support.