COAST CITIES — Revisiting the La Paloma Theatre for the first time since his teens, David Paskowitz settled into his seat surrounded by friends, with his wife of more than 25 years by his side.

But this time, the oldest son of the well-known nomadic surfing clan, the Paskowitz family, wasn’t in the theater for just another surf movie. David Paskowitz was there to watch a newly released documentary about his own family.

Doug Pray’s “Surfwise” profiles the upbringing of the nine Paskowitz siblings, eight boys and one girl, who lived in the family camper, or a series of campers, traveling around the world, from surf spot to surf spot … never staying in one place for very long.

Initially, the film provokes laughter, but viewers can feel the torrent of an undercurrent that is always just below the surface.

Many envied the family, who looked to be having an extended vacation, filled with sun and surf and travel to remote locations, but the film brings out the other side of the story, the inside story.

“Ever since 1974, I believe, with The National Enquirer, we were put on display as a family for people to either admire or be insulted by,” David Paskowitz said. “This movie is an elegant piece of art that shows our family soul, as well as the eccentric nature of our lives.”

Considered by many as “rejecting normal,” the patriarch of his Jewish family, Dorian Paskowitz, gave up a successful medical career in 1958, married his wife Juliette, and hit the road, eventually, with his family in tow.

But as the now 86-year-old Dorian Paskowitz explains in the film, it was more about rejecting what other people thought was normal, and a way, he said, to be close to his family.

The lifestyle lasted nearly three decades.

Although most of the siblings seem to hold fond memories of the days spent on the road, the family bond and the lessons learned about survival and materialistic needs, the film brings out the down side of those years. Years spent in the microcosm of the family and the resulting isolation and insulation from the outside world.

As the story unravels, and the siblings leave the family nest one by one to go on to try to find their place in the world, the once close-knit family, who one time paddled out in the surf together and formed a circle, holding hands, started to divide.

After initially encountering success in the world of surfing — in both contests and their popular surf schools — professional music and the arts, many of the siblings struggled.

It was not so much the lack of a formal education that kept the children from integrating back into mainstream society, David Paskowitz pointed out, but the lack of knowledge of how the outside world worked. “I tell people the story that when I left home at 23, I honestly and sincerely believed that all adults told the truth and would not deceive each other,” he said.

David Paskowitz now leads what many would believe to be a charmed life in North County with his wife and daughters, and has had a long, successful music career, from his days with the band Goldfish to the David King Experience. But it was a long and often bumpy road to get to where he is today.

During the filming of the movie, the family reunited in Hawaii, and the circle was complete once more.

David and Dorian Paskowitz took a trip to Israel last summer to bring surfboards to the Palestinian youth in the Gaza Strip, and set up a concert, as part of Surfing for Peace and Artists for Peace.

And although the Paskowitz family story is far from over, there is a somewhat happy ending for now.

Visit www.surfwisefilm.com for show times and more information.