‘They’d come to take our heads’: the surfing daredevils who risked everything for the perfect wave

In 1975, two Australian surfers thought they had discovered the holy grail: the perfect wave. Kevin Lovett and John Geisel were at the southernmost tip of Nias, a tiny island just to the west of Sumatra in Indonesia. But during their first fortnight of carving up the then unknown right-hand point break at Lagundri Bay, a miraculous gyre that spat the pair out of ridiculously long-lasting barrels, they were hounded on the shore by sinister figures wearing bird-feather cloaks. When one of them, with burning red eyes, came closer, a friendly local explained what the deal was. “He was supposedly discussing how to kill us,” recalls Lovett. “They said they’d come to take heads.”

In a more typical surf film, the discovery of a world-class break in a malaria-infested backwater with a history of head collection would be the starting point for a gnarly wave-riding version of Apocalypse Now. Instead, Point of Change charts the long-term effects on Lagundri Bay of Lovett and Geisel’s expedition. In short: it was less Endless Summer and more endless consumerism.

“I didn’t want it to be lots of talking heads of blokes saying: ‘We found the wave and conquered it – and it was amazing.’ We’ve seen that a million times,” says director Rebecca Coley, whose beach life started with her father’s pedalo business on Jersey before graduating to surfing. Her film features surf pioneer Lovett recalling his brushes with these tribal animists and regretting the rampant overdevelopment at Lagundri Bay once word filtered out. But, more importantly, Point of Change canvasses the islanders on the evolution of their home into a cluttered and often tense resort, asking whether it rescued them from poverty or corrupted their spirit. By the 1990s, the bay area was blighted by jerry-built hostels, shoddy infrastructure and aggressive hustlers.

It was a touchy subject: Coley spent many months persuading people to go public. “They had to understand what I was going do with the film,” she says, “and that it wouldn’t be a negative thing to be on camera saying bad things about Nias.” Bonne Gea, from a Muslim Nias family and five-time Indonesian women’s surfing champion, is one of those who bear witness. Gea was the initial impetus for Point of Change: Coley began making a short film about Gea’s achievements in 2015 – then, after returning to the island following a spell in Bali, Gea realised how fast it was transforming.

There is, says Gea, no easy answer to surf tourism’s impact on Lagundri Bay: “It’s both good and bad. The good being the things we learn from tourists: speaking English, better job opportunities and how to cook western food. But there is no longer a good vibe when you surf that spot – and sometimes no respect.”

The film shows how mass tourism was a radical interruption to centuries-old Nias culture. Years after his initial visit, Lovett is told something shocking by Sufarma Gea, the area’s sole resident in the mid-1970s and a distant relative of Bonne’s. As the foreigners were leaving on a subsequent trip, a shadowy malefactor may have abducted and murdered a malaria-stricken companion of theirs. Rumour has it that he buried her head underneath a new bridge, as a blessing – in Nias’s warrior culture, heads were a symbol of power. Coley has tried to locate the woman, known only as Ingrid, but to no avail. True or not, the anecdote is like a cursed creation myth for the colonisation that followed.

Nias was the latest iteration of a familiar story. Hawaii’s Waimea Bay, St Francis Bay in South Africa and Uluwatu in Bali have all been examples of what you might call “the surfer’s burden”: the desire to ride the perfect wave in some exotic locale while knowing there is a distinct chance that your presence is contributing to the gradual destruction of that place, or at least its essential character.

This is the paradox facing the hippy surfers who were chasing santosha, or spiritual contentment, but who already had a Super 8 on a tripod on the beach at Nias to film themselves – and presumably show others. Now the latest technological snake to taint Eden is the controversial $5m aluminium judges’ tower drilled into the reef at Olympic surfing venue Teahupo’o in Tahiti. “I’m very interested to see what the fallout is after the Olympics,” says Coley. “It feels, again, like the local people are not ready for the whole world to turn up. But at the same time, as a surfer, I’m contradicted, because it’s amazing to watch these world-class athletes.”

Related: Point of Change review – how ‘surf explorers’ wrecked a tiny Indian Ocean paradise

Lovett and Geisel’s efforts to keep the place a closely guarded secret, which included printing their postcards backwards, were futile – and these days, our social media-oriented world is even more inclined to display and disclose everything. But Coley thinks there may be a correction: “I do wonder if there will be a pushback – where we travel in a slower, more authentic way, without documenting everything we do.” Fretting over such issues may have the air of first-world problems, but the issues are genuinely complex. So Coley says she was careful not to take a proscriptive line in the film, despite pressure from potential financiers to do so. All the better to let the locals’ voices be clearly heard – as it is their opinions that ultimately count.

Point of Change suggests there have been some partial improvements for Nias, particularly after the more eco-friendly wave of reconstruction that followed two tsunamis in 2004 and 2005. According to Coley, local decision-making groups exist that, in principle, give Nias residents some measure of responsibility for and control over their community. Gea can attest to the importance of those things on a personal level. They are precisely what an aquatic life has given her: “My life with no surfing in Nias? Married at a young age to a man of my parents’ choice – with as many children as possible.”

• Point of Change screens at the Prince Charles Cinema, London, on 30 August, then tours the UK.