"Surfwise" docu makes waves with unique story

April 29, 2008 Documentaries inevitably expose us to stories we'd otherwise never know and in the case of "Surfwise" we're all the richer for finding out about the Paskowitz Family. What sounds like just one more surfing movie turns out to be a unique tale of a now-85-year-old doctor who with his wife abandoned the material world in the mid-1950s and made waves by raising their nine children as ultra health-conscious surfers who were home schooled in the family's cramped camper. No quick summary can begin to do justice to the story of Dorian "Doc" Paskowitz, M.D., but the nuts and bolts of it all emerged in my recent conversation with Doug Pray, who directed "Surfwise," opening via Magnolia Pictures May 9 in New York and May 23 in L.A.

Subscribe to the Hollywood Reporter and see the entertainment industry from its best angle: the inside looking out. Complete access to real-time news and exclusive analysis that goes behind the scenes from film to television, home video to digital media.

   Subscribe now.