NAKED ISLAND

One day over sixty years ago, Marijan Fučkan, director of a food factory and a young father, vanished without a trace, finally resurfacing four years later – seriously ill, traumatised and with scars covering his whole body. Where had Marijan, the grandfather of director Tiha K. Gudac, been all that time? No one was allowed to ask and the family never spoke about it. It isn’t until years after the death of her grandfather in 1992 that Gudac attempts to get to the bottom of the story. She learns of a brutal re-education camp, which Yugoslavia’s President Tito had built in the early 1950’s to house so-called “enemies of the people” on the island of Goli otok, off the coast of present-day Croatia. At times over 20,000 individuals were interned there; subject to the cruellest torture and still burdened by fear and shame for decades after their release, they remained incapable of talking about their experiences. Now they are finally beginning to break their long silence ... In her touching and very personal film, which was selected as the best documentary at the Sarajevo Film Fesitval, Tiha K. Gudac manages to not only tell the story of her family – she also relates a dark chapter of the history of the Yugoslav state.