Elina Naboka Brings a Distinctive Perspective to Surf Filmmaking
Elina Naboka’s story makes a simple point about surf culture: talent can come from outside its established networks, but people still need room to show what they can do. When I met her on Oahu’s North Shore, she was about to head back to New Jersey. We had little time to talk, but her work and drive were hard to miss.
Born in Ukraine, Naboka didn’t arrive with ready-made connections in American surf or creative circles. She built them through photography, filmmaking, and persistence. Even in California, one of the sport’s cultural centers, it’s unusual to see women leading projects across several disciplines. Naboka has done that work across three continents. That’s more significant than it may first appear: a sport stays healthy when people with commitment and respect can help shape its culture.
Ashton Goggans, founder of the Center of Radical Education (CORE), puts it this way: “Elina is exactly what the surf world needs more, a talented and driven woman who brings a unique perspective to the table and works just as hard, if not harder, than all the men.”
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Choosing the work she wanted to make
A teacher once told Naboka that “Surfing is too boring of a subject.” She was 25, taking a filmmaking course, and had brought in a short surf piece she made after spending two months in Indonesia. Her teacher steered her toward an indoor project, where she could demonstrate her handling of light and equipment.
But Naboka already had a direction in mind: “Film in nature, close to the elements.” The disagreement says something about her approach. She wasn’t looking for the easiest subject to fit a classroom exercise; she wanted to work where the conditions themselves mattered.
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Since then, she has directed, shot, and edited surf films featured by major surf media outlets, including SURFER. Her work has screened on Oahu’s North Shore and premiered in theaters on the Jersey Shore. She has filmed major hurricane swells on the East Coast, curated an international art exhibition at a well-known European surf film festival, and shot campaigns for Levi’s Shoes, Vissla, Salomon Sverige, and Faherty.
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A Surf Film Built Around Secondhand Boards
Elina Naboka’s work in surfing stands out in a field where, as she puts it, “women are still a minority and men make up the majority.” Her collaboration with East Coast surfer Simon Hetrick, a series called “See You Next Time,” brings that perspective into a project shaped by both surf culture and the boards people actually ride. The latest installment, “Marketplace,” has a simple constraint: every board used in the film was bought secondhand through online marketplaces, with a focus on 1990s shapes. The decade’s look has returned across youth culture, and major brands including Adidas and Oakley have revived the era’s wraparound “fast guy” sunglasses. The film taps into that trend, but its used-board premise gives the nostalgia a practical edge.A Two-Year Project, Finished With a Community Premiere
Naboka says “Marketplace” took nearly two years to film across the United States. It’s the third part of a three-part project: the first and third episodes were shot on the mainland, while the team traveled to Hawaii for the second. During that trip, they screened “Camel Milk” at C.O.R.E. during the soft opening of the Center Of Radical Education in Oahu, Hawaii. “Marketplace” premiered this summer at the ShowRoom theater in Asbury Park, New Jersey. The screening sold out, and organizers brought in extra chairs. Naboka describes the local surf community’s support as a highlight. The film also screened in Margate and Ocean City, New Jersey, and was accepted into the Scheveningen Surf Film Festival in The Hague, Netherlands. For a project built around secondhand boards and a decade’s worth of visual references, the strongest measure of its reach may be the response in those rooms: a surf film that brought a community together across three New Jersey cities and found a place at an international festival.Related: Watch: Simon Hetrick & Elina Naboka Score Pumping Morocco in “Camel Milk”
