In a Year of Setbacks, We Can Learn from Maya Gabeira’s Comeback

In 2013, Maya Gabeira cheated death. While surfing off the coast of Nazaré, Portugal—home to the biggest waves on Earth—Maya lost her balance, got knocked unconscious, and almost drowned.

But not long after she came to, she resolved to keep going. She spent years rehabilitating her body, which included three spine surgeries, and pushing through consistent, rigorous training to get back into peak condition. By 2018, she returned to Nazaré, and established the record for the biggest wave that any woman had ever surfed.

Maya’s story of perseverance is movingly captured in Maya and the Wave, a new documentary by Stephanie Johnes that I was proud to join as an executive producer. And as we approach the end of a long and challenging year for women especially, Maya’s story has taken on a new kind of resonance for me.

After all, a lot of women are feeling knocked down. We’re burnt out at work in record numbers. Our reproductive rights have been under continuous attack. And in the wake of the election, many Black women in particular have chosen to take a step back from engaging with a political and cultural landscape that feels like it has rejected us.

But as tempting as it has been to give in to cynicism, I keep coming back to Maya and the Wave and feeling a sense of hope—both when I think about the barriers that Maya overcame to live her story, and the barriers Stephanie has overcome to get it heard.

It’s inspiring enough to consider the physical obstacles that Maya had to prevail over. But conquering a 68-foot wave was far from the end of her battle for recognition. Misogyny came next.

In order for a big wave surfing achievement to be recognized in the Guinness Book of World Records, it has to be verified by the World Surf League. And Maya’s breakthrough was going to mark the first time that a women’s record was recognized in that category. But the WSL ignored her outreach for months. It wasn’t until Maya launched a petition that got tens of thousands of signatures that her accomplishment was finally officially recorded—eight months after it was complete.

Meanwhile, Maya and the Wave itself has gone on its own journey of recognition. Stephanie followed Maya for over a decade, through her struggles and triumphs, demonstrating her own discipline as she slowly and methodically pieced the film together.

When it premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2022, it made a massive splash, with enough audience enthusiasm to earn first runner-up for the festival’s coveted People’s Choice Documentary Award.

But then came eerie parallels to Maya’s story. Despite overcoming long odds to complete an objectively enormous achievement, Maya and the Wave did not get the recognition you’d expect in the aftermath. It left TIFF with no distributor.

But like Maya, Stephanie hasn’t given up. Two years later, she’s taken Maya and the Wave on a self-produced global tour of festivals and screenings as she fights to bring the story to as many audience members as she can.

And it’s not a moment too soon. We’re living through a renaissance of cynicism. Americans are expressing profound doubts about our future, and rates of depression have never been higher. Is it just a coincidence that in a time when millions are searching for an escape, they’re heading to the movies in record-breaking droves? (Including another film featuring a young woman who harnesses the power of the ocean?)

There is a clear appetite for stories of positivity and inspiration right now. Maya and the Wave tells that kind of story, and it is that kind of story.

Maya and Stephanie serve as powerful reminders of how women—and anyone who has ever struggled to achieve a dream and be recognized for it—can beat extraordinary odds if we stay focused and refuse to give up.

But to truly emulate them, we have to be willing to accept that there will be months, or even years, when it feels like we’re making no progress at all. There will be moments when we’ll have to be our own best advocates.

And when we’re faced with choppy, uncharted waters, the only way out might be through.