Aaron grew up dreaming of becoming a Navy SEAL. But he is forced to find a new path after being diagnosed with Stargardt’s, a rare progressive eye disease that can lead to complete blindness.

Years later he is one of the top visually impaired surfers in the world. He has peripheral but no central vision, he rides by feel. He faces some of his biggest competitions yet but, his life is upended when his home and entire community in Lahaina, Maui, is devastated by fire that reduce the town to ash.

But for Aaron, surfing goes beyond just winning surfing competitions and titles.

The ocean is the only place where he cultivates resilience and connection to community, one wave at a time.

Director’s Vision for ‘The Incredible Paulk’

We were first drawn to Aaron Paulk’s balance of independence and interdependence, how he moves through the world with strength, but also vulnerability. Early on he shared, “I’m more comfortable in the ocean than on land” which became the center of our creative focus.

We wanted to avoid the familiar arc of a “hero’s journey,” where adversity is overcome and things are tied up neatly with a bow by the end. Instead, we leaned into ambiguity in making the film. We aimed to create space for questions, contradictions, and the ever-evolving relationship humans have with change and uncertainty.

On August 8, 2023 everything shifted. Fires tore through Lahaina, Maui, leaving Aaron’s home and community in complete devastation. He called us days after fleeing: safe but unsure if he’d return to a community, a home, or a life he recognized. The horrific number of lives lost was rising. “We need to include the fire in my story,” he told us.

The story expanded. So did our timeline and our responsibility. Our film was no longer just about surfing, or adapting to vision loss. It became about how we collectively endure, witness, and rebuild in the face of devastation and upheaval. Aaron’s relationship with uncertainty was always central to our film, but now it took on a deeper and more urgent meaning.

In the months that followed, we spent time simply listening to and talking with Aaron. We questioned whether it was even appropriate to return to film after the fire. But Aaron helped guide us forward. He went on to compete, and win, at an international adaptive surfing event not long after the fire. Still, our film never suggests trophies represent healing, or that resilience erases pain, or trauma. Our story isn't about victory in a traditional sense; it's about staying in relationship with loss, community, and place.

What emerged was a layered story on adaptation. Not just to physical impairment, but to grief, displacement, and impermanence. Through Aaron’s eyes, we began to see Lahaina not only as a location, but as a living character scarred, sacred, and profoundly loved by many many generations of people, including Aaron.

We wondered if what happened to Aaron would become increasingly common in an era of global climate change? We considered how moments in individual lives, like Aaron’s, become woven in the fabric of historic collective reckonings that follow disasters.
Structurally, we leaned away from linear storytelling, instead favoring emotional arcs and rhythms of memory, or of Aaron’s internal world. At times finding the order felt unclear to us, until we realized that time itself, after trauma, rarely moves in straight lines. That realization freed us. We allowed the film to unfold like a wave, rocking in and out of past and present, devastation and adaptation.

This snapshot in time, woven with pain, love, community, culture, loss, and renewed strength, was a story Aaron trusted us to tell–letting us in at one of his most intense periods of his life. Like many filmmakers, we naturally reckoned with expanding the film further.

Ultimately, we feel honored to share this film and make room for Aaron’s story to continue in real time.