Vista Mare

Filmstill Vista Mare

Vista Mare

Vista Mare
Florian Kofler, Julia Gutweniger
Audience Competition 2023
Documentary Film
Austria,
Italy
2023
80 minutes
Italian
Subtitles: 
German Subtitles for deaf and hard-of-hearing, English

Over the course of a season, the film follows the many manual operations behind the façade of a “carefree” beach holiday. A seaside resort, artificially constructed on Italy’s Adriatic coast, is the setting of this stoically surrealist observation. In the hotels’ canteen kitchens, meals are prepared without pause; sun loungers and umbrellas are put up in endless rows on the beach, illuminated letters polished to perfection. The holiday production workers are busy around the clock, tirelessly working in the name of the ultimate diversion. The goal: The guests are to regenerate in the best possible way and waste no thought on the conditions behind the scenes.

Even if everything here seems to revolve around the best time of the year, there is an obvious contradiction at the centre of the film. We see people whose job it is to amuse those who in turn are trying to recover from their jobs. An absurd undertaking, sure. The images of a demonstration for better working conditions disturb the perfect machinery only briefly. Rather, the march of this nameless army of employees looks like a staged and well-controlled break from a never-ending cycle. For if they do not do it, dozens of others are already standing by to secure a meagre income in the giant business of tourism.

Lina Dinkla

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Director
Florian Kofler, Julia Gutweniger
Script
Julia Gutweniger, Florian Kofler
Cinematographer
Julia Gutweniger
Editor
Florian Kofler, Julia Gutweniger
Producer
Bernhard Holzhammer, Victor Kössl
Co-Producer
Debora Nischler, Wilfried Gufler
Sound
Florian Kofler
Sound Design
Florian Kofler
Score
Gabriela Gordillo
World Sales
Michaela Čajková