SCREENWRITER PETTER ENGLUND [PORTFOLIO]
A STORY OF THE SEVEN SEAS
INSPIRED ON A TRUE STORY
SHORT SYNOPSIS
On a boozy charter trip to Gran Canaria, Jonah, 22, a seeker trapped in the wrong context, detaches from his party-absorbed friends with the intention of experiencing something radically different from what the inauthentic tourist attractions have to offer. He meets Jasmine, a somewhat mysterious woman with something seemingly unfamiliar going on for herself. She invites him to an afterparty on a one-of-a-kind sailing boat — the S/Y Ultimat Fuga — where Jonah is introduced to a mythical, largely self-sufficient, consumer-culture-rejecting collective that spend their days sailing around the world wherever they please. For the lack of anything better to do with his unremarkable life, Jonah joins them for what quickly turns out to be the adventure of a lifetime. Jonah settles in and finds the social context that he has been missing, but before long he also discovers that the community on board has the same social evils that he thought he was leaving behind.
WHY THIS FILM?
Ultimat Fuga is a fresh take on a coming-of-age adventure drama that explores a number of different existential questions. It's a story about daring to explore the unknown and losing one's innocence in the face of coming to terms with the human condition: greed, the search for meaning, the desire to be unique, mortality.
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It's a film about freedom: what it means to different people at different stages in their lives, why it's so important for so many, and the double-edged sword that it's often thought of to be.
It's a film about being a part of something larger than ourselves. What is the price we pay as individuals to be a part of a community — small or large? How much are we willing to give up on ourselves to be accepted by our peers? And what does it take to resist the collective power as an individual?
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As much as it's a film about what makes life worth living, it also takes deep dive into the darker nature of our being. In many ways, the premise of the society onboard was always flawed and "too good to be true". The logic being: it it's not paradise if it's every day. The philosophy they all signed up for promises a society where each member is rewarded according to his/her needs but is ultimately corrupted by its leadership. As such, Ultimat Fuga stands as an exploration of human nature.
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As the film nears its conclusion and connects to the present day, it taps into the modern aspects of intrusion of privacy, which has become an increasingly hot topic over the last couple of years, and asks the viewers near the end: is freedom only as simple as being unattached & free to do what you want, or are there more factors to the equation?