To Live To Sail

Three lives, three coasts, one unbreakable bond with the sea

To Live To Sail is a 2017 Croatian mid-length documentary directed by Lana Šarić that portraits three people across Italy, Greece and Croatia who have each chosen a life inseparable from the Mediterranean Sea.

What To Live To Sail is about

Pavel is a sailing instructor in La Spezia on the Ligurian Sea, Italy, who turned a lifelong passion into a vocation and now lives permanently aboard his boat. Yiannis is a fisherman from Nafpactos in the Corinth Channel, Ionian Sea, Greece, who sold his large vessel for health and financial reasons and faces difficult times with his family. Ana lives and works along the Croatian Adriatic coast. Across winter, summer and autumn, the film traces their daily routines and reflects on the modern Mediterranean: its history, its pressures, and the unbreakable connection it forges with those who call its shores home.

Director of To Live To Sail

Lana Šarić is a Croatian writer and director who graduated in Dramaturgy from the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb. She also works as a skipper and nautical-tourism organiser, a background that lends this film an intimate, experiential perspective on seafaring life. To Live To Sail was produced by Jaka produkcija, Croatia.

Awards and festivals

The film won the Audience Award for Best Mid-length Film at the Mediterranean Film Festival Split, a fitting recognition for a portrait of Mediterranean coastal life. It has screened at more than twenty international festivals, including Toronto Indie Doc Fest, Roma Cinema DOC, the European film festival dokumentART, and the Voice from the Waters International Traveling Film Festival, among many others across Europe and North America.

Setting: Italy, Greece and Croatia

The documentary moves between three distinct coastal landscapes. La Spezia and the Ligurian Sea in northern Italy provide the backdrop for Pavel's sailing school and floating home. The small fishing community of Nafpactos, on the Corinth Channel in western Greece, frames Yiannis's story of a fisherman at a crossroads. The Croatian Adriatic coast, the film's country of origin, anchors Ana's chapter and gives the whole work a personal geography rooted in the director's own homeland. Together these three settings paint a layered portrait of Mediterranean nature and coastal life.

Where to watch To Live To Sail online

To Live To Sail is available to stream on GuideDoc. GuideDoc is a curated platform dedicated to award-winning documentaries from around the world. If you enjoy adventure documentaries or films about people and their ways of life, this mid-length film is a focused and rewarding watch at 40 minutes.

Related documentaries to watch next

If To Live To Sail appeals to you, GuideDoc offers several films in a similar spirit. The Mighty Orinoco Delta and From the Tropical North to the Alpine South both explore communities shaped by distinctive natural environments. A Stranger Quest and Extraordinary People offer further portraits of individuals living outside mainstream urban life.