Wanderlust after 13 minutes: “By the Sea”

Surfers know this place on the north coast of Peru, but ordinary tourists have not been going there for a long time. A British oil company once left its mark on the area, followed by the military, and since then it has been in slow decline. “By the Sea” is the title Manfred Neuwirth, filmmaker and co-founder of the Vienna Medienwerkstatt, chose for his latest work: 24 shots, notes in image and sound, personal views of this magnificently dilapidated fishing town and the surrounding landscape, pounded by wind and sea. Grass is growing in a swimming pool, a picture of a whale adorns a brick wall, a skipper's relic that has spent the winter on the beach bears the proud name Titanic. Even if only the foundation walls remain today, it is fitting that the first cinema in South America was supposedly located here.

Michael Omasta, Falter