A drowning surfer who died after being carried out of the ocean by good Samaritans at Queens’ Jacob Riis Park was a rising documentary filmmaker whose first feature is about to have its US premiere.
Sebastián Lasaosa Rogers, 35, was pulled out of the ocean about 12:40 p.m. Saturday and rushed by medics from the Rockaways to Coney Island Hospital, where he died.
Rogers’ debut feature-length documentary, “Freeing Juanita”, premiered at the DocsMX Film Festival in Mexico City in December and opens on June 4 as part of the New Jersey Film Festival.
The film follows a couple from Guatemala who travel 1,000 miles to northern Mexico to try and free their niece Juanita, who has been detained for seven years after confessing to a crime she didn’t commit in a language she doesn’t speak.
HIs drowning left friends reeling. His wife and family declined to speak to a reporter.
“It’s incredibly sad news as Sebastian was such a kind soul and warm-hearted human,” one friend, Chris Westcott, said in a Facebook post, adding that Rogers had apparently gotten caught on a submerged wooden jetty.
“I’ve known Sebastian for the last 10 years, as he came out to visit and surf with me in Rockaway periodically,” Westcott wrote. “Sebastian was a talented cinematographer, human rights activist, and total sweetheart who put everyone around him at ease with his presence.”
The Spanish-American documentary filmmaker and cinematographer graduated magna cum laude from Vanderbilt University with a Bachelors degree in anthropology and film in 2013 and lived in Crown Heights. Rogers got his professional start in Nashville, making videos to support workers’ rights, including the Fight for $15 movement, according to his website.
According to the website of arts organization Art21, where Rogers was a contributor, his work has been featured at SXSW and many other festivals and published by The New York Times and PBS.
He also loved to surf.
“Sebastian had that deep love and appreciation of the ocean,” Westcott said on Facebook. “I remember the way his eyes lit up in and around the water.”
Rockaway is known as the surfing mecca of New York City, where wave-chasers brave the elements throughout the year in wetsuits to get their fix. The Queens beach is the only place in the city where surfing is legal, according to the city Parks Department, with the sport allowed in three sections of the water. Jacob Riis Park’s beach is managed separately by the National Park Service.
When Rogers disappeared underwater, two bystanders rushed to his aid after noticing his board in the water sticking up in the air, according to Rockaway resident Robert Conti, 58.
Robert Conti’s son, 18-year-old son Owen Conti , a city Parks Department summer lifeguard in the Rockaways, and his friend who is a former lifeguard were able to get Rogers out of the water and provided CPR.
The elder Conti was alerted to the emergency by his son and raced to the beach.
“What they saw from the shoreline was the board sticking straight up in the air and the board wouldn’t do that unless it was hung up,” Robert Conti said.
“I got there probably a few minutes after they started the CPR and they rolled him over a couple of times on his side and there was a lot of fluid coming out of his mouth. It was upsetting to see.”
A city Medical Examiner autopsy determined Rogers died from drowning.
