Synopsis

About 60 years ago, a man disappears. Overnight, just like that. Four years later, he reappears. As a different human, sick and traumatized. A dark and painful secret will accompany him for the rest of his life. Nobody in his family is allowed to ask him about what has happened during his absence. It’s his granddaughter Tiha K. Gudacs, director of this film, who starts looking for the truth much later. She wants to find out what her grandfather, blemished by a variety of scars, is not telling her. It’s only after his death that she succeeds in putting all the puzzle pieces together – from old family pictures to testimonies of contemporary witnesses – and an overall image can appear. A mosaic which shows how much the horror he experienced can still influence the life of the family even after three generations. The fact that also Tiha’s grandmother’s soul was broken in Tito’s punishment camp on Goli (Naked Island) provides the film additional drama. Cineuropa’s praise of the work, which has been awarded as Best Documentary Film at the Sarajevo Film Festival, turned out almost hymnal: “A very personal and touching, but also an informative, politically significant and universal, story.”

Guests

Tiha Gudac

Tiha Gudac
Director, writer Naked Island 
In Vienna: October 2-4