For trans surfer Alice Barbosa, rediscovering her stoke is an act of resistance

A few years ago, when Gabriel Novis returned to his hometown of Maceió on the northeast coast of Brazil, he saw a familiar face at a local bar. Surrounded by her friends was his old family friend, Alice Barbosa. He hadn’t seen her for over a decade, having moved to the USA to pursue his filmmaking career, but in that time Alice had grown fully into an adult, while also coming out as trans.

“She was at the bar,” he remembers. ​“She had long blonde hair, and this kind of moustache, and she looked really fucking cool.”

The encounter ultimately led the pair to collaborate on Novis’s latest short film, Alice, which traces her tough journey as she navigates the loss of her father, while also taking on prejudice in the local surf scene and beyond. It blends classic documentary with more experimental, surreal scenes, bringing to light Alice’s experiences and the challenges that she has had to overcome.

Brazil is a tough place to trans, and especially a trans woman. Since 2008, more trans people have been killed in the country than any others on Earth. But Alice is a story of resilience, community and the power of self-expression in the face of hardship. Having fallen out of love with surfing scene due to the macho, exclusionary nature of the local scene, the film ultimately closes with Alice taking to the seas and reclaiming the waves for herself.

Alice won Best International Short Documentary at the 2025 Hot Docs Awards, which means that it will now automatically be considered for the 2026 Academy Awards. Ahead of UK première at the 14^th edition of the London Surf / Film Festival x Finisterre, which takes place November 6 – 8, 2025 at the Riverside Studios, featuring films, workshops, Q&As and more, we caught up with Novis to hear about the making of the film, life in Maceió, and how he hopes the film can inspire people who watch it.

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How do you know Alice?

I’ve known her forever, we used to live in the same apartment building and our parents were close. Her dad would surf with my dad, and we’d surfed together since we were young. She’s younger than me – I grew up hanging out with her dad, so I kind of watched her grow up, and eventually we became old enough that we could actually hang out and surf and skate together. Then I moved to the USA to pursue a career as a director, and I kind of got fed up with the whole surfing industry – not because I didn’t love surfing, I love it so much and surf as much as I can – but because it all kind of became the same, and the environment can be weird.

After the pandemic I came back to Brazil and reconnected with Alice – she was now a grown up woman, and it was so cool and inspiring. I decided I wanted to tell her story. I didn’t know how or why, but having documented so many surfing stories, I felt that she had something else to say – a unique point of view and perspective on life, arts, culture and the sport. So we began catching up on what had happened over the past 12 years. I knew about her father passing away, but I wasn’t up to date on what she was doing. There was a lot of learning and understanding, and figuring out what kind of story that the film was going to be, and what the angle would be. Obviously, she’s a trans woman and I’m a straight guy, so I wanted to make sure I was finding the right tone to tell the story, and to be respectful of her and her world. But the idea really came from this need as surfers to communicate with the surfing community and open their eyes about something that isn’t right, in my opinion.

Like any sport, surfing has its toxic sides, which the film explores. Was that challenging to do?

I’ve been working in surfing for so long, and I took a bit of distance from it. I like to dress differently and paint my nails, and back home people used to bully me because of that. They expect you to look and behave a certain way in Brazil – especially in the northeast of Brazil, and especially in the surfing community in the northeast of Brazil. That bothered me a lot, because for me surfing was about style and counterculture – that’s how my dad introduced me to it as a boy. It was meant to be a movement where you could be free, but that’s not how it really is, and like Alice – she doesn’t feel comfortable in the water because she’s a woman and doesn’t fit what surfing ​‘should’ look like.

Alice ended up moving away from surfing and towards skating – why did she find it more her scene?

I think skating is more democratic. I feel nowadays, you automatically have to be privileged to be a surfer – you have to live by a beach, and then if you don’t you have to drive to the beach, which can be far and expensive. Even though the ocean’s there for everybody, it’s not very accessible for a lot of communities. Skateboarding is more global and it comes from the streets – I grew up skating too, and I could clearly see the difference between the surfing and skate communities [where I am from]. In the skate community there was a beautiful mix of everybody: poor, rich, Black or white, we were all just there to stoke and cheer for each other. Alice leaned towards that.

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What’s life like in Maceió?

It’s a really beautiful place – it’s truly paradise. It’s a city in the state of Alagoas, and the weather’s always nice and tropical. It’s a very calm place to grow up, but it’s hard growing up there if you are a film director or an artist. Finding community can be complicated, and we had to seclude ourselves from the rest of the people at our school, and just go painting and skating, because we couldn’t really blend in with the people there. So when I saw Alice at the bar with her friends, I thought it was so cool because I could see my myself and my friends growing up [in them], doing the same things we would do to create their own world.

What have you learnt about life as a trans person in Brazil?

Brazil is still the country that kills the most trans people in the world, so it’s very dangerous. It’s very sad – people are just trying to be, and they’re not bothering anyone or doing anything to anybody. Like Alice for instance, she’s just trying to be herself, and it’s really sad that one cannot be who they’re meant to be, just because people don’t understand or agree with how they look like. I can’t speak for her, but I’ve been trying to engage more in the community and learn, and it’s very delicate, but the situation is frustrating. I want to empower her and empower all the other Alices, and get out there and go surfing and skating, and to hang out with their friends and get home safe. She says it in the film – she’s not asking for anything complicated, just to live her life, hang out with her friends and get home safe. That’s all.

There are some pretty wild, experimental shots in the film. What was the thinking behind that?

We were trying to find an aesthetic that represented her, and she felt like she shouldn’t be put into a box and just be one specific thing, so I wanted to make a film that would represent that. So that’s why we didn’t follow any rules of cinema, filmmaking, or surf filmmaking. We wanted to really experiment and be free to do what we felt, when we felt like it. And that’s why the ratio of the film changes, the camera goes upside down, we have different textures and colours, and black-and-white – it helps to serve the story. And it changes in pace, tone and sound as Alice gains strength to become herself even more, and then enough to get back into the water. So a lot of the choices in the film are not only telling this story of this progression but also coming back to the ocean.

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What do you think Alice’s story can teach young trans people in Brazil, and even beyond? 

Yeah, the initial idea started with surfing, but I came to understand that the film represents much more than that. In a way, she represents art in general – when society’s trying to tell everyone to look the same, dress the same and behave the same, that’s very dangerous, because then art dies. Art comes from diversity, adversity and authenticity, and I think she represents that resistance. So, I hope that when people watch the film, first of all they get out there and go surfing, and then to be themselves and do whatever the fuck they want.

What was the most memorable moment in making the film?

Getting her back into the water and seeing her surfing for the first time after so many years – that was really cool. We were all very excited about that, and we shot it on the last day of making the film, because we wanted to make it special. We surfed the break back where her dad used to surf – he grew up surfing that spot. Funnily enough, we actually recovered one of her dad’s surfboards, so she surfed her dad’s old board. It was at someone’s surf shop for many years, and she finally got it, so it was a very special moment.

The UK Première of Alice, directed by Gabriel Novis, takes place as part of London Surf / Film Festival on Saturday, November 8. For more information and tickets, click here.

Isaac Muk is Huck’s digital editor. Follow him on Bluesky.

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