Eternal youth, a human dream. In the last hundred years, industrialized nations have experienced a health revolution: people are living longer than ever before in human history. Deadly plagues and diseases were eradicated, and technological advances provided abundant food and easy mobility. But modern life is gradually giving birth to new diseases such as cancer and dementia, which we are trying to combat with ever greater use of science and technology. We are all getting older, but we all have to fear becoming seriously ill in old age. Would it be possible to grow old while maintaining the health of youth? In a few regions of the world, people seem to have the recipe for this. There are a noticeable number of centenarians here. Old people who are young at heart live with agility and alertness, work and party as if it were all effortless. What is her secret? In stylistically modern and cinematically high-quality images, the Fountain of Youth of the World series takes the viewer to five different regions of the world.

A tiny mountain village located between Rome and Naples, Campodimele has risen to scientific fame since the 1980s. Here, the doctors at the University of Rome found an unusually high number of healthy, very old people compared to the number of inhabitants. The secret of long life was isolation and a poor man’s cuisine so rich and valuable in trace elements that one could develop a diet from it. But with the rural exodus, the food culture is also dying. But one legacy of the residents will certainly survive: a genetic mutation that obviously keeps people healthy and only occurs in such a concentrated form here. Every third resident in Campodimele has blood vessels as supple as a teenager by the age of 70. Can the mutation be the blueprint for a fountain of youth pill?

Director: Yousif Al-Chalabi
Script: Yousif Al-Chalabi
Camera: Yousif Al-Chalabi
Editing: Daniel Paul Bier
Music: Christoph Schauer
Sound: Matthias Kreitschmann
Natrrator: Erich Räuker
Editorial Staff: Pit Lehmann (MDR), Christian Cools (arte)
Production lead: Brigit Mulders, Bernd Schwarzer (MDR)
Production: Andrea Ufer
Stations: MDR/arte

– Episode 1 – Guanacaste, Costa Rica
– Episode 2 – Abchasien, Kaukasus
– Episode 3 – Campodimele, Italien
– Episode 4 – Hainan, China
– Episode 5 – Loma Linda, Kalifornien/USA