‘Super Paradise’ Follows Mykonos’ Path From Hippie Paradise to Party Island and Billionaires’ Playground

variety.com:

Christopher Vourlias In one of the many eye-opening moments in “Super Paradise,” Greek filmmaker Steve Krikris’ loving documentary portrait of the island of Mykonos, Marilli Tsopanelli, a writer and multi-disciplinary teacher of mime and dance, recalls the bohemian, free-loving spirit that prevailed on the island in the 1960s and ’70s. “Most of my friends lost their virginity in 1971,” Tsopanelli explains.

Another interview subject puts it more bluntly: “So much sex.” It would be inaccurate to characterize Krikris’ documentary as a lusty romp through the hedonistic heyday of “a scandalous place,” as another of the film’s talking heads describes it; indeed, the director, who spent summers on Mykonos throughout his youth, thoughtfully traces the island’s journey from an impoverished fishing community during the Second World War through its golden age as a hippie enclave in the ’70s, continuing onward to the velvet-roped excesses of today. “Super Paradise,” which premieres this week in the Newcomers competition of the Thessaloniki Intl.

Documentary Festival, is the first documentary from Krikris, whose deadpan drama, “The Waiter,” premiered at Thessaloniki’s sister event in 2018.

Based on an original idea by Paul Typaldos, who shares producing credits with Dafni Kalafati, it’s an emotional return to one of the defining places of the filmmaker’s adolescence, the site of endless summers that also marked an “important milestone” by setting him on a course to make movies.