In the 1980s, a pilot left behind a surfboard in a remote seaside village in Papua New Guinea, a land known for cargo cults and cannibalism. Twenty years later, the sport of surfing is splintering Vanimo Village. For select surfing talent, it's a way out to compete in the "whiteman's" world. Personal and clan rivalries emerge as hopefuls claw for this prestigious position.

This is the premise of the new surfing documentary, Splinters, filmed and directed by Adam Pesce. Adam is a surfer from Santa Barbara who grew up surfing Rincon before moving to Los Angeles to study Diplomacy and World Affairs at the Occidental College. When I spoke to Adam he'd just returned from New York where Splinters premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival

Swellnet: How was the film received at Tribeca? Adam Pesce: It was absolutely wild. A head-spinnning experience.

Is Splinters your first film? Yeah, it's the first time I've ever made a film, and I had to learn each part of the film making process. I was by myself and I had to learn on the fly; I had to learn how to shoot, I had to learn how to do sound. And when I came back from the trip I also had to learn how to edit. It's been a long road. I think film school might've been a quicker and easier way to learn...

I first saw a trailer of Splinters in August 2009, nearly two years ago. The film has been a long time coming. I did an initial research trip with some friends a few years ago and didn't come back with any footage from that trip. After that I ended up going back to Papua New Guinea when I heard this surf competition was going to take place and that was when the core of the film emerged.

When I got back home I cut something to put it out there, but that was before the film had even been edited. I just got it out there to see if there was any response. I remember you reaching out to me way back then asking about the film, and I was like 'ahhh...I still have to make the film'.

What sort of film did you go to Papua New Guinea to make? You know, when I went back and lived in the village of Vanimo I spent quite a bit of time watching documentary films. A few of them were competition-based films; there's a film called Spellbound which is about American kids wanting to win these spelling bees and following that experience. Another film called Hoop Dreams follows these inner-city kids in Chicago and their goal to become pro basketball players. The kids were only fourteen when the film begins and the filmmaker charts their lives into their first year of college. It was this study to see how their dreams panned out.

So coming to Vanimo village and imagining what the film could be I was definitely coming at it with a sociological anthropological slant. But being a surfer I also wanted to surf and to pay homage to amazing surf films that were influences to me and made me want to go there in the first place.

To answer your question; a mix of a competition film, a surf film, and an anthropological film as well.

It's a dramatic documentary, quite a few things happened in front of the camera that you may not have expected. Yeah, that's the thing, right. If you're making a fiction film you know what's going to happen because it's in the script. Yet I showed up in this village with no idea what was going to happen. I knew that this surf competition was coming and that might provide the spine of the story. But aside from that I was starting from zero.

A big concern of mine was a desire for it to be intimate. I wanted it to be real, and I didn't want to have voiceovers or any type of narration. I wanted the story to be told through a series of experiences of the characters in the film. The first problem with this is communication. How am I going to be understood? So for the first two months I was there I was learning Tok Pisin [the national language of PNG].

Also, I was living in the village with one of the characters, Steve, the coach character, and just getting to know the life of this village. There's quite a bit of data collection involved. You know, who's who? Who's related to who? What's their relationship? Do those guys have beef? Just orientating myself and figuring out who the players in the village where. Steve was able to point me in the direction of the talented surfers. So I went out in the line up seeing who might be contenders in the competition. It was a long process.

What does surfing and surfing competitions mean to the people of Papua New Guinea? I've always thought that for this village the surfboard is an icon of the West. Or the globalised world. This village has only had contact with the rest of the world since World War Two. Some of the elders know Japanese better than they do English. The issue is not so much a matter of the 'old world meeting the new world' but more like 'how's this village going to deal with the globalised West?' It's really the surfboard that is bringing in that change.

We all know that Bali has become this mecca for surfing and there's positives and negatives to that. What was curious to me was how this village was going to deal with both the opportunity and challenge of the surfboard. Is it gonna dissolve cultural traditions? Will there be some sort of exploitation by Western tourist operators, perhaps? Yet it could also be a benefit. This village is a patriarchal society where men rule. The domestic violence in Papua New Guinea is rampant. It's off the scales. And surfing is actually bringing in some more Western egalitarian values and maybe that can benefit some of the women in this village.

So the question is an evolving one. And I hope this film challenges the audience to form their own opinion.

Lately there's been a slew of surf documentaries that portray surfing as the cure to all the world ills, is that view too simplistic? In general I'm a bit of a sceptic so I don't like magic bullet cures for anything. Look, I think surfing is a gorgeous sport and a beautiful lifestyle and beyond that it can be really fulfilling. My humble hope for the village is that they can wield the tool of surfing to benefit them as they see fit. I think the solution will have to come from within the village. I don't think any outside force – surfing included - is going to be strong enough to influence anything within the village. It'll really have to come from the grassroots.

Having only seen the trailer, is it a film of hope? Obviously the film has to be seen, the trailer is just the cover of the book. I hope it gets you wanting to see the broader piece. But without saying too much, I think it does. I think it does offer some hope. Does the trailer lead you to believe that there's not much hope?

Well, it didn't seem to offer any easy answers. My first thoughts were that it was very confronting, and I did wonder about the note that it was going to end on. Yeah, I think the note that it ends on is that, hopefully, it gets you questioning. I wanted to make something that was lifelike, that's not to sunny and not to grim. Something that's complicated and grey just like all of our lives are. And I really wanted it to be true to my experience of being there as well.

This vilage at Vanimo is one of the most idyllic, gorgeous places I've been and completely dark and tragic at the same time. It was really wild to see these kids bellyboarding on found pieces of wood, naked and smiling ear to ear. I'd never seen anything like that. It made me feel so warm and proud of the sport, but at the same time the mother of one of those children gets beaten senseless just hours later. That was the reality of the place. My goal of the film was never to paint something that was extreme or sensational.

I speak to surfers in Papua New Guinea occasionally, should they be worried that their country is portrayed in a negative light? I had this conversation with Andy Abel [President of the Surfing Association of PNG]. I've been working with Andy for half a decade or more on this film and the plans to use the film to generate more awareness of surfing in Papua New Guinea. From the very get-go this was something that he and I discussed. The question is, what are the people in Papua New Guinea, the people on the ground floor going to do with this opportunity? It's really about what they want to do with this spotlight.

Andy is extremely proud of this film. I'm not going to put words in his mouth but after the screening he reached over and grabbed me by the arm, he looked me in the eye and he said 'well done, mate'.

Lastly, Splinters is not typical of the films that screen on the surf film festival circuit, have you been invited to any festivals? We played at the Newport Beach Film Festival and had a great response. I was really concerned and curious as to how it was going to play for surfers and I think the response was good. I think people saw that it wasn't going to be all huge aerials and appreciated that. But we do have a few surf film festivals that we're going to be playing. One is the Alma festival in Brazil. We got an acceptance to a surf film festival in San Sebastian in Spain, and some others that we're investigating.

I really want surfers to see this film and hopefully it's something that they'll open up to. I am a little concerned that it doesn't have a single pro surfer in it but hopefully it's a film that people warm to.

Watch the trailer of Splinters here.