Forget the frantic 15-second Reels designed to hijack your attention. With the 30-minute film WASHED, released in 2025, filmmaker Wade Carroll and the Quiksilver team take surfing back to its roots.
Shot over two intensive years, the project deliberately pushes against the disposable nature of social media. It is part surf film, part cultural statement, fuelled by punk, driven by pure performance and proof that boardriding culture deserves more than a few seconds in an endless feed.
A 30-minute punk rock hit
Rather than giving in to the pressure to post constantly, Quiksilver chose to sit on the footage, letting it build away from the noise and urgency of social media.
Thirty-four filmmakers from around the world filled hard drives with clips for what the crew dubbed a “Hard Drive Cleanse”.
Visually, WASHED is deliberately anti-algorithm. Long Beach-based Studio NICK and illustrator Brian Butler layer analogue textures with an ’80s fanzine aesthetic that feels worlds away from polished, over-produced corporate content.
The opening makes its intentions clear. Peter Fonda’s famous The Wild Angels line, “We wanna be free!”, gives way to Mudhoney’s In ’n’ Out of Grace. From there, the soundtrack dives headfirst into grunge, driven by the heavy riffs of the Seattle band and the distorted guitars of J Mascis.
All-in on the riders
WASHED steps away from the structure of many contemporary surf films and brings back a format synonymous with the glory days of the ’90s: individual rider sections.
Instead of following one destination or one trip, each part gets inside the style and mindset of a different surfer.
On one side, the Championship Tour heavyweights get to cut loose.
Freed from the constraints of WSL judging, Griffin Colapinto lets his creativity run wild. Alongside him, Kanoa Igarashi delivers his first proper free-surf section in years, showing just how effective his technical approach remains when there is no heat clock running.
Then the pure free-surfers take over.
Mikey Wright throws down powerful carves on his Ryan Burch asymmetric “Pickle Fork”, along with a huge air at Lakey Peak. To close the film, Kael Walsh goes all-in, from committed drops into heavy Irish slabs to aerial rotations back home in Western Australia.
The film finds another gear through the sections from Kauli Vaast and Marco Mignot. Between the Olympic champion newly arrived on the CT and the Rookie of the Year, the level of commitment is high and the surfing seriously solid.
Australian Lungi Slabb, meanwhile, strips things right back: pure surfing, grounded in the rail.
The raw final chapter of a trilogy
WASHED did not come out of nowhere. It is the final chapter in a trilogy that began with the lo-fi atmosphere of Saturn in 2022, followed by the road-trip energy of Repeater the following year.
With this final instalment, the circle closes.
Wade Carroll strips away the destination and leaves only the obsession: drawing lines, committing fully and finding that point where the surfing no longer needs anything else around it.
