Lena Kemna Maria Fernanda interview on Her Wave and Instagram

The Lena Kemna Maria Fernanda interview brought an unexpected turn in Lena Kemna’s film tour: Meta had suspended the Instagram account she spent nine years building, but her four ongoing sponsors stayed with her. Speaking with Maria Fernanda, the big-wave surfer also explained why Her Wave will play in cinemas rather than stream online, and why her next season will put training ahead of making content.

What did Lena Kemna say about the Her Wave documentary?

Lena Kemna said Her Wave follows the highs and lows of her second big-wave season in Portugal, rather than building toward a conventional triumph. She and filmmaker Luigi developed it together as the season unfolded, including exceptional surf, financial difficulty and the period in which she finished her PhD.

A season of big waves and difficult months

Compared with her first documentary, Lena, Kemna considers Her Wave a stronger commitment to the filmmakers’ own style. The waves are bigger, but the difference she emphasized was the storytelling: the new film has its own arc and, she said, was made with less concern for the formats that work on platforms such as Netflix and YouTube.

She described the season as stormy and said Portugal experienced its biggest storm since recorded data began. It brought the best and biggest waves of her life, alongside financial struggle and a dark period around completing her PhD. Rather than shape those events into what she called a traditional hero arc, the filmmakers tried to stay faithful to how uneven the season felt.

Why Her Wave is screening in cinemas

Kemna used her marketing background to pitch the film to brands, then arranged the agreements so sponsors would not review it before its release. She said that let the filmmakers retain control of the story. At the time of the interview, only the trailer was online; the film itself was being shown in cinemas, with screening dates added to her website as they were arranged.

She wants audiences to hear the music and the waves together, away from the distractions of watching on a phone. Even 30 minutes of undivided attention would make the experience more memorable to her, she said, though a cinema-first approach could leave some people waiting months to see it.

What did Lena Kemna say about her Instagram account suspension?

Lena Kemna said Meta suspended her Instagram account without justification two months before the interview, shortly before her film tour. She had built the account over nine years; it had about 15,000 followers and, by her account, close to a million views each month. Its disappearance made her reconsider her reliance on the platform.

The account she built over nine years

Kemna said the account showed her surfing and freediving, and she could not reach a person able to resolve the suspension. Although some of her livelihood depended on Instagram, her first feeling when the account vanished was relief. For two or three years, she had been weighing its value as a source of inspiration and income against the time it took from her and her audience.

The suspension did not immediately change how she trained. It did, however, sharpen a question she already had about filming in the ocean for work. She recalled that her first big-wave session of the previous season was devoted to making a reel for a brand. Being in the water still felt like work that day, and she did not enjoy the session as much.

She has since put attention into other outlets, including a secondary account, LinkedIn and YouTube. Kemna also discussed speaking events, a recent TEDx talk and a podcast she was creating. She prefers the longer attention those formats can allow and said she has never felt at home making content around trending audio and hooks.

What did Lena Kemna say about sponsors after losing Instagram?

Lena Kemna said G-Shock, iron, Aces and care matter continued supporting her after her main Instagram account was suspended. Each had an ongoing agreement with her that ordinarily involved regular social media content, but she said all four chose to stay while she shifted attention to films and other platforms.

Four continuing partnerships

Those relationships cover watches, wetsuits, laptops and skincare. Kemna said the response depended partly on the brand and on whom she spoke with inside it. For teams focused on social media, she tried posting through other channels; she said some of those posts performed surprisingly well for views.

With people able to take a longer view, she found more willingness to wait. She pointed to G-Shock, with which she estimated she had worked for about three years and made two or three films. To her, that relationship amounted to more than an Instagram account. She said she had previously worked with dryro, but not under a continuing contract as one of its surfers.

Kemna did not claim that every sponsor would respond the same way. She said film sponsorship is often tied to social media content and considered her current partners an exception. If she never regains the account and a brand eventually lets her go, she said she can accept that rather than return to making Instagram her main priority.

What is Lena Kemna planning for her next surfing season?

Lena Kemna plans to make training and surfing her priorities next season, with no new film planned and little social media content. She wants more time in the water, room to improve her surfing and a chance to learn jet ski driving, which she described as an area where she is a beginner.

October was set to mark her return to the sports season. She expected to surf an approaching swell if the forecast held and described October as preparation for winter. Instead of planning sessions around filming, she wants to judge the coming season by the time she spends doing the sport and developing her skills.

Looking back, Kemna said content creation had ranked among her top three priorities during the previous two seasons. Those years produced two films and experiences she values, but she no longer wants a campaign or a reel to dictate why she enters the water. She still expects to film sometimes; she does not want every session to be filmed.

Kemna told Fernanda where she wants that change to lead:

I will prioritize surfing over content over social media over anything

Why does Lena Kemna want to surf without social media content?

Lena Kemna wants to recover some of the enjoyment she said sponsor work took out of surfing. Her concern is not filming itself but reaching a point where nearly every day in the ocean has a work assignment. She is willing to earn money outside sport rather than keep that pattern going.

The month when every ocean session was work

She recalled a month in 2023 when she was in the ocean almost every day, yet none of those days was for herself. Each was spent working, filming or shooting a campaign. She said she had lost some joy along the way and turned to freediving as an escape from the surfing world before finding her way back through big-wave surfing.

For Kemna, declining some content opportunities would give her time to think and to surf well. She also wants to be clear about why she accepts the risks of big waves: not for an image or a sponsorship, but because she wants to be there. That remains important to her even if stepping back from social media changes her income.

She has another option if sport no longer pays her bills. Kemna said she has a PhD in marketing and could work in that field. She is still working out what it means to be a sponsored athlete while protecting the pleasure of surfing for its own sake.