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.

“Come to Hainan and live as old as our elders here,” is how the tourism industry on China’s most popular island promotes a healthy life. And in fact, visitors encounter an above-average number of people who are older than average, especially in rural areas. A regular and frugal life, sparse but healthy food, consisting primarily of vegetables, rice and fish, gives so many people here a long life. The tropical island in the South China Sea, on the other hand, is a boom region with enormous growth figures, like the mainland. Modernity threatens to devour tradition. A 3,000-year-old culture and way of thinking of Ying & Yang, the search for balance in life, is in trouble. How much excess can a tradition of healthy living that thrives on scarcity tolerate?

Director: Yousif Al-Chalabi
Script: Yousif Al-Chalabi
Camera: Yousif Al-Chalabi
Edititing: Daniel Paul Bier
Music: Christoph Schauer
Sound: Matthias Kreitschmann
Narrator: Erich Räuker
Editiroal Staff: Pit Lehmann (MDR), Christian Cools (arte)
Procution 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