The young intellectuals J. and Elena leave behind their comfortable lives, the parties and the money in Medellin to settle down on a remote island. Their plan is to lead the good life, self-sufficient and close to nature. But from the very start, each day brings small defeats and imperceptible dramas, which gradually turn paradise into hell, as their surroundings inexorably claim back every inch of the 'civilisation' they brought with them. Based on a true story, 'In the Beginning Was the Sea' is a dramatic and searingly ironic account of the disastrous encounter of intellectual struggle with reality — a satire of hippyism, ecological fantasies, and of the very idea that man can control fate.