Private Project

The IBUR Connection

The IBUR Connection is a film about miracles. It was filmed in Israel, the West Bank, Morocco, Ukraine, and Poland. It is a historical spiritual road trip told from the tombs of Saints and Prophets.
At the tombs of the Saints, there is an energy known as an IBUR. When pilgrims go to the Saints at their tombs and ask for miracles, the IBUR helps to make the miracles come true.
While the film primarily covers Hebrew Saints, known as Tzadikim, it highlights the commonalities of the three Abrahamic traditions, which includes visiting several sites that are holy to Christians, such as the birthplace and the tomb of Jesus, as well as Islamic sites, such as the Temple Mount/Holy Sanctuary, the Arab section of the Tomb of the Patriarchs, and Morocco, a country that is entirely Muslim.
In Israel/West Bank, the film presents the Saints along the four energy centers: Fire (Jerusalem), Water (Tiberius), Air (Tzfat), and Earth (Hebron). In Eastern Europe, the film travels from Kiev in Ukraine, to Warsaw in Poland, visiting sites that today are the only testament left from an era that was completely decimated during WWII.
The film's narration provides information about the Saints' spiritual history, insights into the energies at their tombs, and stories about the miracles they performed.

  • joe diamand
    Director
  • joe diamand
    Writer
  • joe diamand
    Producer
  • Project Type:
    Documentary
  • Genres:
    Spiritual, Historical, Road Trip
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 17 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    May 3, 2015
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    Israel, Morocco, Palestine, State of, Poland, Ukraine
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    HD
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    Yes
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Florida Movie Festival
    Orlando, Fl
    May 2, 2015
    Documentary Finalist
  • Central Florida Film Festival
    Orlando, FL
    September 5, 2015
    Best Documentary Finalist
  • Kingdomwood Christian FIlm Festival
    Atlanta, GA
    October 1, 2015
    Silver Award Best Documentary
  • Christian Film Festival
    Newport News, VA
    United States
    May 28, 2016
    Virgina
    Best Documentary
Director Biography - joe diamand

The IBUR Connection is Joe Diamand's directorial debut and is the first product of Joe's production company, digitoa STUDIOS. Joe started digiota in 2009 after the market crashed while he was working as a systems analyst for a NYC day trading company.

Joe previously starred, produced, and wrote the screenplay for a campy Martial Arts film called Miami Connection. Miami Connection bombed at the box office and quickly faded into obscurity. In 2012, it was rediscovered by Drafthouse Films and made a successful comeback on the midnight movie circuit. Joe became involved with Miami Connection because of his Martial Arts background and holds an advanced degree in TaeKwon-Do from his martial arts teacher, GrandMaster YK Kim, the star of Miami Connection.

In between Miami Connection and The IBUR Connection Joe had a successful career as a computer scientist, working on technologies such as 3D graphics and video compression, in addition to developing financial applications for Wall Street firms. While managing the development team at a high tech telecommunications company in San Diego, Joe led the software engineering effort for a number of groundbreaking technologies, including cable modems, H.264 video compression, streaming media, video on smart phones, and so on.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

My parents were born in Poland, and by some miracle they managed to survive the Holocaust. Years after the war ended they moved to New York City, where I grew up. After both my parents died, I made a pilgrimage to Eastern Europe to visit the tombs of some of most righteous souls that are buried there. In the Jewish tradition, these righteous souls are known as Tzadikim.

At the end of the trip, I toured the Warsaw Ghetto and the only surviving prewar Jewish house of worship remaining in Warsaw, the Nożyk Synagogue. And then it hit me, how can this be? How could a once thriving community be reduced to a sparse sprinkling of cemeteries and a single prewar house of worship in a city this size?

The horror of what my parents had gone through began to sink in even deeper, and this time in a way that I could not have possibly understood without being there in person. I was physically connecting with what they had left behind and that made the tragedy of the loss of their parents, brothers, sisters, friends, and neighbors all the more painful. It was at that point that the idea of making a film started to take shape. It would be a film that would help to evoke the memories of what had once been and would be told through some of the most powerful symbols that had survived the Holocaust … and what brought me to Eastern Europe in the first place … the Tzadikim. And from there the idea to include righteous souls from Israel and Morocco and to tell a story of spiritual history began to take shape. And, since Saints, Prophets, and Tzadkim are universally acknowledged by Muslims, Christians, and Jews, the film began to acquire a message of hope through emphasizing the unifying ties of the three Abrahamic religions. The result is ‘The IBUR Connection.’