Healing Through Mother Nature with Adam Warmington

When the Me Water Foundation reached out to Adam Warmington about creating a short film for their surf-related foundation, Adam jumped at the chance to share his passion for surfing. A surfer since his teens, Adam understood the feeling of gliding across the water. It wasn’t just a sport but an experience unlike any other.

The “New Water” program created by the Foundation aimed to offer underprivileged kids from San Francisco and beyond a holistic experience centered around surfing.

Working closely with his friend and the organization’s founder Eddy Donnellan, Adam sought to create a poetic and abstract piece, deviating from the typical narrative and instead focusing on a first-person story from one of the participating kids.

Adam short film, “Float,” sheds light on how the healing power of Mother Nature can bring together disparate communities and help kids find peace in the ocean.

The organization chose to document a kid named Anthony and gave Adam the opportunity to delve deeply into his experiences in and out of the water. Anthony’s background, living with his grandmother due to his father’s imprisonment and mother’s estrangement, added depth to the narrative. Adam gained an even deeper understanding of Anthony’s story through attending the program’s campouts and just getting to hang out with the kids.

Adam’s poignant observation about the proximity of the beach—only two miles away—yet the lack of access for these kids highlighted a profound disparity. As an activity often associated with affluent people, the story illuminated the inequality in access and leisure time between different communities.

The volunteer-led initiative deeply resonated with Adam, and he found immense satisfaction in bridging the gap between his passion for surfing and a community that typically lacks access to such activities despite living so close to the ocean.

The film provides a wonderful opportunity to see how a kid’s dream of the sea – can actually become a reality.