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Touristic Intents
A film by Mat Rappaport 72 minutes, color, 2023
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| Synopsis
Touristic Intents explores the complex interplay between mass tourism and political ideology through the story of Prora, a colossal Nazi resort on Germany's Baltic Sea. Construction began in 1936 to build this 3-mile-long structure, which would accommodate 20,000 vacationing Germans – and serve as a powerful propaganda tool to enhance support of the Nazi regime. But it was never completed. After the war, the GDR (East Germany's Socialist government) used it for military purposes and to house conscientious objectors.
Today, as Prora undergoes transformation into a modern vacation hub, the film raises provocative questions about the enduring influence of architecture on political memory and national identity, challenging viewers to consider the responsibilities in preserving a building's contentious history. Watch the Trailer Reviews "Movingly, this film is an elegiac exploration of the literal and figurative rubble left behind by dictatorial histories. At the intersection of collective memory and sea environments, Rappaport also engages with vanishing archives on a historical and planetary scale. Ultimately, we can’t be certain if we are looking into the past or at a ruinous future ahead." - Anke Pinkert, Head, Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign "The film’s gradual revelation of the building’s psycho-political past (and present) is a real-life examination of horror genre’s most popular premise: the haunted house." - Anu Thapa, Film Theorist, Virginia Tech Links For educational inquiries, click here.
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