En la tormenta

A beautiful and inspirational little documentary. It made me cry at least through half of it.

I stumbled across this by accident and how glad I am that I did. Outstanding documentary about a kid from the Peru slums that finds a broken surfboard on the beach and decides that this might be his ticket out of the slums. Wonderful cinematography, emotional roller coaster. Tears throughout sadness and joy

For kids from poor countries, sporting talent is potentially a way out of the ghetto; but of course, a chaotic home life is potentially a barrier to success. This documentary follows Jhonny Guerero, a young Peruvian surfer, as he tries to make his way in the world. There's some potential interest here, but as a story, it seems the action occurs offscreen. Jhonny misses an event, or doesn't perform well due to nerver, and then he shows up to another one and does great; meanwhile, we're told what may or may not be happening to distract him, but the narrative feels patchy. Perhaps obviously, the camera isn't present when Jhonny gets shot; but neither do we get a clear explanation of how competitive surfing works, and what Jhonny has to do to win. He seems a nice enough kid, but for all the talk of him "chasing his dream", this is a fairly mundane film.