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.

There’s a small town in the middle of Southern California that’s at the top of age expectancy in the United States. Even more astonishing, the town of Loma Linda is at the bottom of the statistics for diseases of civilization. In the country that critics see as the birthplace of waste, a small church community in Loma Linda has shaped a health counter-revolution. At first glance, there is nothing different here than anywhere else in the industrial West: people drive to the supermarket in their cars and live in their own single-family homes. However, in practical life, just a few simple rules of life of the Seventh Day Adventist Church result in its members living up to eight years longer than people in the rest of California. Modernity and a healthy and vital long life seem compatible. Is this fountain of youth an example for all of us?

Director: Yousif Al-Chalabi
Script: Yousif Al-Chalabi
Camera: Yousif Al-Chalabi
Edititing: Daniel Paul Bier
Music: Christoph Schauer
Sound: Eric Narjes
Narrator: 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