Paradise: Love / Paradies: Liebe

AUSTRIA | GERMANY, FRANCE / 2012 / 120min.

Paradise: Love / Paradies: Liebe by Ulrich Seidl

Cast: Margarethe Tiesel, Peter Kazungu, Inge Maux

Nominations and awards: Cannes 2012 – Competition, Best Feature film, Director and Actress – Austrian Film Awards 2013

Short synopsis:

PARADISE: LOVE, the first film in the Paradise Trilogy takes place on Kenyas beaches. Known there as „sugar mamas“, European women seek out African boys selling love to earn a living. Teresa, a 50-year-old Austrian woman, travels to this vacation paradise. PARADISE: LOVE tells of older women and young men, of Europe and Africa, and of the exploited, who end up exploiting others.

Film Director: Ulrich Seidl

Ulrich Seidl was born in Vienna, Austria in 1952. He studied filmmaking at the Vienna Film Academy. His short documentary THE BALL (1982) almost led to his expulsion from film school, both for the film’s “morally and ethically dubious” content (it was seen to be mocking of its subjects) and also for its form: Seidl was accused of presenting the film unedited. Before directing narrative feature films, Seidl directed the award-winning documentaries: GOOD NEWS (1990), ANIMAL LOVE (1995) and MODELS (1998). JESUS, YOU KNOW (2003) premiered in Competition at Karlovy Vary where it won Best Documentary, while IN THE BASEMENT (2014) and SAFARI (2016) both screened Out of Competition in Venice.