Pro-surfer Tatiana Weston-Webb, who has won wave riding contests since competing as a teenager in 2013’s North Shore Surf Shop Pro Junior event at the Banzai Pipeline and scored a silver medal in the 2024 Summer Olympics, stars in the new documentary “A Marble in the Jar.” The last film made by renowned surf cinematographer/director Greg Browning, “Marble” was shot in part on location in O‘ahu and Kaua‘i, where Tatiana moved when she was two months old after being born 1996 in Brazil, where her mom had been a professional bodyboarder.
In “Marble,” the 5-foot-4-inch platinum blonde discusses growing up on the Garden Isle where, emulating her older brother Troy, she first learned to surf by the age of eight. As home movies of Tatiana during her small kid days are shown, the adult pro-surfer reminisces: “Growing up in Kaua‘i, you have so many opportunities around you to just be like surrounded by nature and really a kid at its core. Running around no shoes on, bikini on all day, going to the beach. The coolest stuff in the world that you dream of doing, we got to do as kids.”
“A Marble in the Jar” includes eye-popping, jaw-dropping camerawork above the pounders and underwater, as Weston-Webb rides the waves from Hawai‘i to French Polynesia to Australia to Bali to Mexico to France to Portugal to California and beyond on the pro-surfer circuit, in search of championships and the ideal tube. During her Oceanic odyssey, Tatiana, who has a goofy stance, experiences — literally — ups and downs. There are triumphs, such as perfect 10-point rides at the Roxy Pro France in 2015 and again at Teahupo’o, Tahiti in 2024. But along the way she also grapples with agonizing defeats, like coming in second to Hawai‘i surfer Carissa Moore at 2021’s Rip Curl World Surf League Finals in San Clemente.
Following her losing of that world title to Moore, in a tight closeup a weeping Weston-Webb confesses to the camera: “My heart was broken because I was dreaming and believing till the last minute. And it felt like I was gonna do it. You know?”
Even more painful is the fact that during the shooting of this documentary Weston-Webb learns that Greg Browning is stricken with ALS or “Lou Gehrig’s disease,” and dies of the neurodegenerative disorder at age 50 in 2025. In addition to directing and shooting “Marble,” as well as other board riding classics like 2010’s “Drop Zone: Fiji,” Browning — himself an elite surfer — helped mentor Tatiana and often traveled with and filmed her on the international surf circuit. Browning’s loss strikes Weston-Webb particularly hard, and “Marble” is dedicated to him.
Onscreen, Tatiana reveals how she psychologically prepares for the ebbs and flows of life, asserting: “The mental side of surfing is almost 90% of the work… You need to be able to tell yourself that you’re winning every day.” The pro-athlete relates how she came across the philosophical phrase “A Marble in the Jar,” which she says is a metaphor for: “Acknowledging the little wins throughout the day and making something of those wins and being positive about it.” These words to live by became the symbolic title of Browning’s final film, which is visualized throughout with artsy imagery, not only with marbles being placed in jars, but sometimes with shattering of the glass — as one literally loses his/her marbles.
“A Marble in the Jar” is the latest in a long line of wave riding films shot on location in Hawai‘i that stretch at least as far back to 1964’s “Ride the Wild Surf,” starring “I Dream of Jeannie’s” Barbara Eden, Tab Hunter, Fabian and Shelley Fabares (who passed away August 22); Bruce Brown’s 1966 documentary “The Endless Summer;” 1987’s “North Shore” with real life Hawai‘i surf champion Gerry Lopez; and 2011’s “Soul Surfer,” wherein 11-year-old Tatiana stunt doubled for her friend and fellow Kaua‘i board rider, Bethany Hamilton.
Another female Kaua‘i pro-surfer, Rochelle Ballard, stunt doubled for Kate Bosworth in the 2002 movie “Blue Crush,” and appears in “Marble.” Ballard became the ISA World Masters World Champion in the Women’s Division in 2012. Like Tatiana, the California-born Ballard grew up hitting the waves in Kaua‘i, where her family moved when she was six months old and where she currently runs Surf Into Yoga which, according to its website, is “an adventure, surf, and wellness retreat company.”
In 2020 Tatiana married pro-surfer Jessé Mendes at the Princeville Resort, and earlier this year, after their daughter Bia Rose was born, Weston-Webb told “Surfer.com”: “My goal is to try to return to the WSL Championship Tour full-time in 2026, even stronger and more inspired. This is just the first step of a new journey, and I hope it shows other women that we don’t have to choose between our dreams and motherhood.” As “Marble” closes, the Kaua‘i-raised board rider gushes that she’s “such a fan of where women surfing is heading.”
On Sept. 11, “A Marble in the Jar” is being theatrically released in 10 cinemas on the Mainland, stretching from California to Florida. Starting Nov. 3, the 71-minute action-packed documentary will play On Demand.
Ed Rampell and Luis Reyes are co-authors of the new book On Location in Hawai‘i.
"Marble in a Jar" Sep. 11 showings are at:
MetroLux 10 Theatres, San Clemente
Metro 4 Theatre c/o The Arlington Theatre, Santa Barbara
AMC Liberty Tree Mall 20, Boston (Manchester)
AMC Highlands Ranch 24, Denver
AMC Plainville 20, Hartford & New Haven
AMC Orange 30, Los Angeles
AMC Sunset Place 24, Miami-Ft. Lauderdale
AMC Empire 25, New York
AMC Hampton 24, Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News
AMC Mission Valley 20, San Diego
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