Courtesy of Tuan Andrew Nguyen and James Cohan, New York.
Directed by Tuan Andrew Nguyen. Vietnam 2017. Vietnamese with English subtitles. 42 min.
The Island is a short film shot entirely on Pulau Bidong, an island off the coast of Malaysia that became the largest and longest-operating refugee camp after the Vietnam War. Filmmaker Tuan Andrew Nguyen and his family were some of the 250,000 people who inhabited the tiny island between 1978 and 1991; it was once one of the most densely populated places in the world. After the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees shuttered the camp in 1991, Pulau Bidong became overgrown by jungle, filled with crumbling monuments and relics. Set in a dystopian future in which the last man on earth—having escaped forced repatriation to Vietnam—finds a United Nations scientist who has washed ashore after the world’s last nuclear battle.
Venue
MACLA/Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana
Castellano Playhouse
510 S 1st St, San José, CA 95113