This cozy Irish documentary by Gar O’Rourke (Sanatorium (2025)) about the over tourism of the Cinque Terre sits with me slightly uncomfortably as I have been one of those tourists.

It’s a warm and unhurried look at the five towns on the coast of Northern Italy that have become a Mecca for influencers and ordinary tourists who flock in the millions there every year. If you know about these towns, they are distinctive because they are relatively hard to get to. There are no roads, with access only by train or boat. They are also very beautifully nestled on cliff tops over the ocean with multicoloured houses creating perfect picture moments.

You would think that the inaccessibility would be a natural limiter for the number of tourists that can come in every day, but there is an endless number of boats that can dock. The surge in Airbnb has also seen many houses that may have been accommodation for workers and locals being turned over for a bigger profit as short stay rentals.

We are shown the story of several different people, mainly locals but also a young, gorgeous and bubbly influencer. There is the wine maker who talks about the rarity of having vineyards on cliffs over the sea. There is the restaurant owner who has worked the restaurant from the time it was the only one there, where all of the locals would have their special celebrations. There is the mayor of one of the towns with her daily juggle between local needs and 3.5 million tourists.

The overarching picture is that there are too many tourists. The quick solution would seem to be to limit them but there is no legislation that allows this by the local municipalities. They also don’t seem to be able to recoup some of the profit being made by outside companies that would let them then cover the day-to-day issues like rubbish collection and cleanup. It might make you think twice before balancing that piece of rubbish onto an overflowing bin rather than taking it with you.

The influencer – I have no idea what her name is – is the epitome of what we think an influencer is. She is constantly narrating her experiences onto camera, aware that she talks very loudly and people don’t like it but not self-aware enough to think she may have to modify her behaviour. She knows that influencers are a problem with over tourism but is oblivious to the role she might play in that. There is a beautiful moment where the camera stays on her as she is forced to ‘be in the moment.’

One of the interesting threads is that of the restaurant owner. He has gone from being part of a business that he feels contributes to the community to being stuck in something that demands his attention every day and only feeds the needs of tourists. We are shown how his daughter, who is 21, is poised on the edge of deciding what her future is. He really wants her to take over the restaurant but even he is miserable at the toll that it has taken on his life.

We also see a fisherman who is one of the few left actually fishing and not doing fishing tourism. He talks of giving up his many hospitality businesses and becoming content with making less money by doing something that feels worthwhile.

There is no solution offered, although we feel at some point perhaps there will need to be intervention to protect the area as a heritage site. Because what is happening is that the culture that everyone is coming to see is actually dying. The Cinque Terre is a great example of what must be happening in many places in the world, and perhaps this is a call to arms for government intervention to protect the fabric of the culture rather than just allow individuals to grow fat on the profits.