The Bubble

Explore the often-surreal senior citizen life within Florida’s Friendliest Hometown community and ask yourself, what is the real price of a perfect retirement?

The Villages, America’s largest retirement community; a 32-square mile, sun-drenched, beautifully maintained, gated paradise in Florida, and home to over 150,000 retirees. The Villages have 96 recreation centres, 54 golf courses, 70 swimming pools, 3 old-fashioned town squares, and some 3,000 social clubs.

Community residents are provided with every convenience to enjoy the twilight hours of their lives, and with every reason never to leave. Retired life beneath the year-round Floridian sunshine, however, is perhaps not as idyllic, or as welcomed, as many ageing Villagers may imagine.

The Bubble intimately examines the exclusive retirement experiences, beliefs, and mindsets of six memorable Village residents; Toni and Roger, Jeanie and John, Terry and Toni. Interweaving these satisfied retiree existences with the anxieties of several residents from surrounding counties, the film reveals how those beyond the community’s sealed gates are being profoundly displaced by The Villages’ endless desire for land, water, and regional control.

Austrian director Blankenbyl offers viewers an engaging, provocative yet compassionate contemplation of American ways of life, ageing, and death.

NZ PREMIERE

Click here for in-theatre tickets.

Category “Through Generations” presented by Rei Foundation