Uploaded September 2024 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Watch the BTS film here: youtu.be/KAUqGrL88wE and the 1-YEAR-FOLLOWUP on this project here: youtube.com/watch?v=k1GNji7p-M0
Martin quit his job, flew to Southeast Asia with little more than a passport and a Visa card, and eventually put everything he had into a piece of land on Gili Trawangan in Indonesia.
He thought it might take a couple of years to build something there.
It took more than a decade.
What followed was a pretty extraordinary mix of adventure, stubbornness, ridiculous logistics, hard work and periods where Martin seriously questioned what he had done with his life. At one point he was working around 450 hours a month in Norway to finance the construction. He transported cement by bicycle, moved old timber across Java, Bali and Lombok, and spent years sleeping in the middle of a building site.
But underneath that adventure was something else.
Martin had lost his father unexpectedly in his twenties. As we got to know each other, I realised we had that experience in common, along with a tendency to respond to difficult things by working rather than stopping to deal with them.
So this became a film about more than building a resort in paradise. It’s about what happens when a dream becomes an obsession, how far we’re willing to go for something we believe in, and whether knowing the cost in advance would stop us from doing it at all.
I met Martin by chance in Bali. A couple of days later, we were on a boat to Gili Trawangan to make this film.
This is Underneath the Adventure.
Lost Paradise is here: https://lostparadise.world ❤️
Want to follow or support the project?
🎬 Watch more stories and films: robindanehav.com
✍️ Support the documentaries and read my notes: robindanehav.substack.com
🎥 Work with me through Impact Docs Studio: https://impactdocs.studio
📷 Instagram: instagram.com/robindanehav
⛓️ LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/robindanehav
Watch the BTS film here: youtu.be/KAUqGrL88wE and the 1-YEAR-FOLLOWUP on this project here: youtube.com/watch?v=k1GNji7p-M0
Martin quit his job, flew to Southeast Asia with little more than a passport and a Visa card, and eventually put everything he had into a piece of land on Gili Trawangan in Indonesia.
He thought it might take a couple of years to build something there.
It took more than a decade.
What followed was a pretty extraordinary mix of adventure, stubbornness, ridiculous logistics, hard work and periods where Martin seriously questioned what he had done with his life. At one point he was working around 450 hours a month in Norway to finance the construction. He transported cement by bicycle, moved old timber across Java, Bali and Lombok, and spent years sleeping in the middle of a building site.
But underneath that adventure was something else.
Martin had lost his father unexpectedly in his twenties. As we got to know each other, I realised we had that experience in common, along with a tendency to respond to difficult things by working rather than stopping to deal with them.
So this became a film about more than building a resort in paradise. It’s about what happens when a dream becomes an obsession, how far we’re willing to go for something we believe in, and whether knowing the cost in advance would stop us from doing it at all.
I met Martin by chance in Bali. A couple of days later, we were on a boat to Gili Trawangan to make this film.
This is Underneath the Adventure.
Lost Paradise is here: https://lostparadise.world ❤️
Want to follow or support the project?
🎬 Watch more stories and films: robindanehav.com
✍️ Support the documentaries and read my notes: robindanehav.substack.com
🎥 Work with me through Impact Docs Studio: https://impactdocs.studio
📷 Instagram: instagram.com/robindanehav
⛓️ LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/robindanehav
