Sam Haddad

Sam Haddad is a reluctant London-dweller who aches for waves in summer and mountains in winter. She’s edited Cooler, a surf, snow, skate and style magazine for young women, since 2007. Before Cooler she earned her journalism spurs on a couple of mainstream mags and before that did a couple of seasons snowboarding in Chamonix, when she started writing for Adrenalin magazine. One of the hazards of being a city-based surf journalist is that she feels like she spends more time looking at photos of people surfing than actually surfing.

Point Break is one of her favourite movies, it made her want to be a surfer and for that reason alone she can forgive its ropey surf sequences and hint of cheese. For Sam, last year’s Nike 6.0 girls action film Leave a Message was pretty mould-shattering in terms of the standard of surfing, but  lacked the narrative she feels a great surf film needs. With that in mind Riding Giants is right up there for her, as is Rio Breaks. In terms of beautiful cinematography Sam likes One California Day and films by Thomas Campbell but thinks we’re still waiting for that great female surf movie…