INTO THE SURF | A Soldier’s Last Dawn
I did not set out to make a film about victory. I set out to make a film about the first step. War cinema often shows us strategy, heroism, and triumph. But I was drawn to the seconds before any of that exists — the moment when a soldier must climb over the side of a landing craft and run into open fire. History records the outcome. It rarely pauses to sit inside that breath. INTO THE SURF was designed to be immersive and intimate. The camera stays close — sometimes uncomfortably so — because I wanted the audience to feel the instability, the confusion, and the desperate forward momentum of the first wave. The desaturated palette and handheld movement reflect not spectacle, but memory — fragmented, cold, and unforgiving. The film shifts deliberately from chaos to stillness. After the violence, there is dawn. After the explosions, there is silence. In that quiet trench, holding a half-burnt cigarette, the soldier becomes human again — not a symbol, not a statistic, but a person carrying what the surf could not wash away. This film is not a recreation of a specific man’s story. It is an emotional tribute to the unnamed soldiers whose first steps shaped history. I hope audiences leave not thinking about battle formations, but about breath, fear, and the fragile humanity inside a uniform. Above all, INTO THE SURF is about remembrance.