The never before told story of Dick Metz, whose vagabond adventures around the globe from 1958–1961 inspired one of the most beloved and widely watched surf documentaries of all time: Bruce Brown’s The Endless Summer.
Birth of The Endless Summer follows Metz’s extraordinary journey across the world, a journey driven by little more than curiosity, adventure and an obsession with finding great waves. Along the way, Metz ventured into places few surfers had ever seen, documenting a new kind of surf culture as he went.
His travels eventually led him to Cape St. Francis in South Africa, where he discovered what he believed to be the perfect wave. Years later, that discovery would become the setting for one of the most iconic moments in surf film history, immortalized by Bruce Brown in The Endless Summer.
But Metz’s journey was about far more than finding waves. His travels helped open the door to a new era of surfing, connecting surfers and cultures across continents and helping lay the groundwork for the global surf culture we know today. His stories, photographs and experiences became the spark that inspired his friend Bruce Brown to imagine a film that could take surfing and the idea of chasing summer around the world to an entirely new audience.
Part travelogue, part historical adventure and part portrait of a legendary surfer, Birth of The Endless Summer uncovers the remarkable true story behind the film that made the world dream of an endless summer and the unlikely wanderer whose journey started it all.
