For generations, the ocean along Côte d’Ivoire’s Atlantic coastline has been a source of livelihood, spirituality, and fear. Often all together at once. The water was for fishermen. The water was what elders warned the children about. Surfing, for most of the country’s history, was not a part of the program.
The Rising Dawn, a new documentary from filmmakers Nadi Saddy and Nuits Balnéaires, is about the moment that started to change. Filmed over four years across remote villages, fishing communities, and little-known surf breaks — from Assinie in the east to the untouched western coast — the film follows the emergence of a new Ivorian surf culture through Souleymane Sidibé, one of the country’s pioneers.
The film will show in Oceanside at the California Surf Museum on August 26th, Rivian Theater on August 29th, and at The Rive in San Diego on September 3rd.
Sidibé came from a community where surfing was essentially unknown. He had to persuade his family that a passion built around the water — a place their tradition regarded with reverence and caution — was worthwhile. Today, he is one of the very few Ivorians making a living through surfing. His story is the film’s anchor, but the film isn’t just about him.
“This wasn’t the story of one individual,” Saddy said. “It was the story of an entire generation redefining its relationship with the ocean. His journey became the perfect lens through which to explore broader themes of identity, resilience, and possibility.”
Saddy grew up between Abidjan and the beaches of Assinie. He discovered surfing while studying in California, and what struck him was not the sport itself but the culture around it — the sense of freedom, the way a wave could transform a person’s relationship with the water they lived beside. He returned home determined to tell a different story about his country and its ocean.
The Rising Dawn
Saddy and Balnéaires deliberately moved beyond the conventions of a sports documentary, drawing on West African cultural traditions, poetry, contemplative cinema, and — for surfers who will recognize the reference — Alby Falzon’s Morning of the Earth. Much of The Rising Dawn was shot at dawn and dusk, in moments Saddy describes as “suspended between reality and dream.” Natural light. Long silences. Slow observation. The ocean treated as both physical and spiritual presence.
The Rising Dawn
The four-year shoot was not easy. There is no paved coastal road along much of the western coastline, so reaching many locations meant long days by 4×4 over difficult terrain. Many beaches had no electricity. Weather rewrote the schedule constantly. In return, the filmmakers found communities living beside world-class waves who had never imagined themselves surfing, and children standing on surfboards for the first time.
That accumulating footage led to a realization that the documentary could not end when the cameras stopped rolling. It became Surf Côte d’Ivoire, the nonprofit Saddy founded during the making of the film. The organization runs weekly youth training programs in Assinie, redistributes donated surfboards to underserved communities through a program called Provide the Slide, and organized the country’s first international surf competition. It also runs the Diaraby Surf Club, Côte d’Ivoire’s first girls’ surf club — a small, deliberate signal about who this new Ivorian surf culture is being built for.
The Rising Dawn
“I hope The Rising Dawn will place Côte d’Ivoire on the world surf map while offering audiences a completely different perspective on the country,” Saddy said. “More than anything, I hope it encourages people to see the ocean as a space of possibility rather than limitation.”
Related: Laure Mayer and Kepa Acero Went to Senegal and Show a Different Kind of Surf Travel