Vamos a la playa
searching for paradise
Forever man has tried to find paradise on earth. Nowadays many travel around the globe, trying to fulfill that dream. No other landscape, no other place is so closely associated with the idea of paradise as the sea shore. Paradise seems to be somewhere between Gauguin’s Tahiti and the Seychelles.
This film explores the origins and the development of the ideas of paradise and their connection to the beach. The film leads us from Carribean dream beaches on Jamaica and the Bahamas to Indian Ocean island paradieses and on to those North Sea beaches, where beach vacations became en vogue in the 18th century. The film takes a look at Gauguin’s picturing the South Sea paradise and reflects upon the rise of mass tourism in the 20th century. It even leads us to artificial beach paradises like “Seagaia” in Japan.
Two “beach experts”, French historian Jean-Didier Urbain, and German sociologist Christoph Hennig give background information, sometimes bizarre facts about the “discovery” of beaches by the tourism industry, and personal ideas about their favourite way to spend “a day in paradise”.
Festival: Seoul Independent Documentary Festival (SIDOF) - 2002 - Seoul, South Korea