Sustainable Tourism: A Hidden Theory of the Cinematic Image? A Theoretical and Visual Analysis of the Way of St. James

The attractiveness of a tourist destination is derived from multiple material and immaterial elements. Cinema is both a tourist communication channel and provides a target market for a destination. Many regions offer a great variety of potential locations desirable for their scenic beauty and artistic and monumental heritage. The main aim of this paper is to analyze the concept of sustainable tourism as a pillar of the contemporary cinematic discourse on pilgrimage routes, combining theoretical and empirical methodologies. It begins by analyzing how, given their power, images are narrative instruments that assume a true performative value of geographical reality. The research then focuses on the cinematographic space and visual cinematographic discourse. The case study is sustainable tourism along the Way of St. James (Spain). The material is a corpus of two documentary films. Their moviescapes highlight the presence of a sustainable filmic theorem within a potential cinematic genre—pilgrimage movies. Thus, this study contributes to the investigation of how sustainable pilgrimage tourism practices are used in cinematic production as a possible movie theorem. It presents a conclusive critical evaluation of the role and message of these moviescapes.