Beeg Approved! Eli Beukes stars in Pikes Bandit

Cape Town, South Africa is a surf Mecca, we all know that. But it’s really damn far away. So sometimes its take a minute to realize how good someone from there is. For example, I remember meeting Brendon Gibbens. He unassumingly came into the office with Dillon Perillo and I kid you not, I thought he was a filmer, not a surfer. He was shy and respectful and quiet. Just cruised and politely asked us tons of questions about anything but surfing. Then he put his clip on the screen and blew our damn mind.

The other day, Beeg returned the favor for fellow South African punter Eli Beaks. He (always very politely) sent us this clip and basically brought on the same reaction: blown damn minds all over the room.

So who the heck is Eli Beukes? How do you pronounce his name? It rings a bell, but now that we’ve seen this clip it is seared into our memory.

Turns out Brendon discovered Eli in a pretty funny way too: Beeg was checking the surf one day where he grew up around Misty Cliffs when he saw Pete down on the beach filming Eli ramping out. Beeg went down to introduce himself and the rest of a bro down.

Eli and Brendon became buddies and started surfing together regularly. Brendon saw the dynamic between Eli and his father Pete and thought it would be rad to capture their endearing relationship so he decided to shoot and help put this short flick together.

Heartwarming really.

No RED cameras, no drone angles, just a kid and his pops nailing the shot on windy days with the handy cam down at their local. And Eli drops hammers galore.

Remember the latest from Ethan Ewing’s YouTube? All shot by his dad too. Hopefully this is a trend that sticks. 

Set aside the next 6:40 to watch Pikes Bandit starring Eli Buekes. You can thank Brendon Gibbens for the discovery.