Director’s Statement

I met Zuma Jay in the wake of the Malibu Franklin Fire in 2025. My family has a legacy of FDNY firefighters going back three generations before me, including my dad, a retired lieutenant. My dad had learned of a local old timer and surf shop owner who had helped save some apartments from burning down, so I went to the surf shop with my dad to introduce ourselves to Jay. He was extremely friendly, telling us all about Malibu’s history, and bonded with us over a shared knowledge of firefighting. As a Pepperdine student, Jay was one of the few true Malibu locals to view me as a local myself, and ultimately enlisted our help to wrap leftover firehouse.

Over the next few months, I began filming with Jay, envisioning a project about the wildfires in Malibu. But the more I got to know him, it became clear that his story was the story that needed to be told. Zuma Jay is a Malibu local legend, encapsulating so much of what the Malibu community means to the people who live here. He is a successful special effects expert in the entertainment industry and the owner of the oldest surf shop in Malibu. But his life hasn’t been all that easy. He lost his house in the Woolsey Fire in 2018. Recently, his partner passed away. He is holding on to a dying surf culture and continues to keep his iconic surf shop afloat amidst widespread corporate buyouts and store closures. In his 70s, Jay is now in his twilight years, reflecting on a life cemented in Malibu.

As our crew has worked with Jay, he has become a mentor figure in our lives. He is dedicated to service in his community, and he pours into the young people who work in his shop. I’m very grateful that he’s extended that same kindness to us. The more I’ve gotten to know Jay, the more I’ve realized that he is, at his core, a man who cares deeply about his community. The thing that has rooted his life, throughout all his crazy stories and experiences, is his love of surfing. What surfing is to Jay, and what his intentions for surfing culture in Malibu are, are still being written. He’s a local legend, father, mentor, stuntman, politician, and renaissance man. But at his core, he’s a surfer. What I hope to show through this film is that being a surfer is something that transcends the sport itself for Jay. It means waking up early and doing something difficult to start the day. It means connecting with people rather than online. It means taking action to help others in the community and to preserve the places that he loves. Most of all, it means being “real deal” and “old school” in an increasingly isolated and pessimistic world. So step into the legendary “dirt-bag surf shop” that has been keeping surf culture in Malibu alive, and meet the man at the center of it, a surfer named Jay.