For Bougainville and his starving sailors Tahiti represented the new paradise on earth. The abundance in Tahiti and the sexual liberality on the island made the Frenchmen roll their eyes. Only when the chief of the Tahitians made clear that the his hospitality would not last for ever, did Bougainville get back to his duties.

The journey in unknown atolls, reefs and the depths of the South Seas put Bougainville and his crew again in danger. Under paradisiac sun the Frenchmen suffer from hunger and scurvy. They constantly have to expect to crash against the unpredictable and unknown coral reefs. At the Great Barrier Reef Bougainville decides to veer towards the North. Too bad, he could have been the discoverer of Australia. Today Bougainville enjoys the posthumous reputation of having given his name to one of the most beloved flowers, the Bougainvilleas.

In 2003 Frenchman Teva Sylvain, born in Papete, the capital of Tahiti, makes a living with the pictures of half naked female islanders on post-card locations. Sylvain´s pictures can bee seen everywhere. But since the French troops have been gradually leaving Polynesia, the business with innocent pictures has not been running too well. However Sylvain still lives on the paradise on earth.

A civil war had been fought in the island Bougainville, which belongs to Papua New Guinea, for over ten years. State of emergency is still ruling the country. The dispute over the gigantic gold and copper mine Panguna led to the bloody conflict between central government, local land owners, day labourers and the foreign mine owners. Over 10,000 people already died in the war, 10 percent of the population. Thousands escaped, like refugee Surei Stevenson. We follow her comeback to the German ex-colony, that after 15 years of economic stagnation looks as if it had turned back to being paradise. Except where guerrilla fighters are tenaciously defending their territory.