Promised Land the Movie (UPDATED)

Tomorrow I'm going to see Promised Land the Movie in Encinitas, California. From their website the movies seems to be the best documentary on Israeli surfing yet. Very good shots of the waves.

But that may be it.

From the trailer, it seems that there is also this "surfers for peace" element that was done in God Went Surfing With The Devil that didn't really work. It's a cry out into the world that says "if we all could only be surfers then there would be no war."

Of course this is unrealistic and the kind of thing I really wanted to get away from in my book, Surfing the Middle East. I think there is a whole lot more you can do with the Middle East--politically & historically--that give the surf projects actual substance . . . beyond, of course, the shocked of "Wow, you went surfing in the Middle East!?"

We shall see 2mar0 at the screening. If any of you are around, swing on by. Here's the website.


UPDATE: So I went to see the movie last night and here are my thoughts: congratulations to them! Promised Land had AAA-grade cinematography and the strong characters in the film really carried it through. For sure a worthwhile movie. Funny and entertaining, too. The downside was that it was light on story: bring people together through a shared faith of Jewish and American Christian values is a wonderful idea, but it just didn't feel natural in the Middle East. Another thing is that there was a categorical demonetization of everything outside of Israel, and while I laud the movies makers for not making a film of Zionist propaganda (it was indeed a sincere documentary), the fact that there are Palestinian Christians, for example, was untouched at best, neglected at worst. All and all I thought the films limited scope decreased the amount of edgyness . . . but I still think they did a good job. It's the best documentary yet I've seen on Israeli surfing.