Takuji Masuda couldn’t be a more perfect fit for our jury. His enthusiasm and support of early to mid careers filmmakers is evidenced by his generous devotion to current and upcoming projects. His former production assistant on BUNKER77, Justin Misch, just finished a film with Wyatt Daily about the history of board design coming out of Santa Barbara, California called Spoons, which is premiering on the east coast this November at our festival. Through his involvement with Pepperdine University, he has dedicated much of his adult life to the art of documentary filmmaking, both learning and sharing his extensive skill set with others. We had a nice visit last week with him in Malibu, and at some point, he gave into the idea to serve on the short documentary jury, where many of our young artists come alive. A big thank you to his efforts, and while he can’t make the festival in November, we eagerly await his next visit, hopefully with a new feature film in his pocket.
Takuji Masuda (47), winner of the Florida Surf Film Festival 2017 Best Documentary – Feature for BUNKER77, is a Japanese Longboard champion from Kamakura known for his committed nose riding at Pipeline. He is also the former publisher of a beach culture, trilingual magazine Super X Media and has curated art shows around the world. Masuda has served on the boards of directors of World Surf League and Pepperdine University, his alma mater, from which he received a bachelor of the arts in 1993 and Master in Fine Arts in 2017. He is also the head coach of Pepperdine University’s esteemed surf team. Masuda’s critically-acclaimed, award-winning documentary film, BUNKER77, is streaming exclusively on Amazon Prime.
Photo: Patrick Ruddy