Santa Monica-based production company Westward Productions founded by Beau Willimon and Jordan Tappis have teamed up with directors Alan White and Jamie Brisick and musicians Bonnie Prince Billy and Matt Sweeney on Westerly a 90-minute feature documentary chronicling the life of Westerly Windina formerly known as Peter Drouyn. Drouyn was one of surfing's first superstars. A true visionary he dominated the international competitive ranks in the '60s and '70s invented man-on-man surfing and introduced surfing to China. But there was much he kept private. As a child Drouyn liked to dress up in women's clothes. During his competitive years he was hypersensitive and introspective amid a culture that was often macho myopic and sexist. For most of his career he felt ostracized. In the '80s he drifted away from competitive surfing and all but disappeared. In 2002 Drouyn suffered a traumatic surfing accident that nearly drowned him. Not long after his feminine side emerged. It was a supernova said Westerly. It just kicked in one night and suddenly Drouyn went Westerly was there. In 2008 Peter Drouyn announced on Australian national television that he was living as a woman. His new name she said was Westerly Windina. Westerly will explore Westerly’s past as a man present as a transgender woman and urgent desire for completion (i.e. gender-reassignment surgert). Featuring interviews with surfing legends Westerly’s friends family and contemporaries and blistering action footage shot in Australia Hawaii Africa and Indonesia Westerly will follow Westerly through this new chapter of her enigmatic journey. “It’s an amazing and unique human story ” say directors White and Brisick. “Peter Drouyn becomes aware of the woman within and transforms into the Westerly Windina of the 21st Century in a country and a subculture still so completely at odds with the very idea of this kind of gender bending.” “Jordan and I are passionate about stories that challenge the imagination and explore the vastness of the human spirit ” says producer Beau Willimon. “Westerly does both – it’s a provocative portrait of continual reinvention while searching for one’s true self.” They hope to have the movie completed in time for release in Winter 2013.
