12º Congreso Internacional de Antropología AIBR

Tourists is a reflective and formally inventive documentary that interrogates contemporary travel culture and its lingering colonial gaze. Constructed entirely from amateur footage recorded by tourists around the world, the film adopts the perspective of an archetypal “Tourist”—a figure shaped by Western imaginaries of discovery, authenticity, and consumption. Rather than following a conventional narrative, the film unfolds as a mosaic of images: beaches, temples, street scenes, wildlife encounters, and fleeting interactions with local people, all filtered through handheld cameras. The Tourist seeks the extraordinary—images that can function as personal trophies and proof of having encountered the “real.” Yet the film reveals a paradox: the act of filming, categorizing, and collecting experiences inevitably transforms them into standardized, aestheticized souvenirs. What was meant to be unique becomes repetitive, framed by familiar clichés and visual conventions of global tourism. In this sense, Tourists exposes how the search for authenticity often reproduces superficial encounters and reinforces asymmetrical relations between observer and observed. The film, however, does not offer simple answers. Who is the observer here, and who is being observed? Dir. by Marta Wójtowicz-Wcisło and Mateusz Romaszkan trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnkOw9kvhqM Enlace a la película: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MIaTS6Udzpu1jGiaMu4eZEiKjM5zBg-k/view?usp=drive_link