The Island (2017)

The Island is a short film shot entirely on Pulau Bidong an island off the coast of Malaysia that became the largest and longestoperating refugee camp after the Vietnam War The artist and his family were some of the 250000 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 The film takes place in a dystopian future in which the last man on earth having escaped forced repatriation to Vietnam finds a United Nations scientists who has washed ashore after teh worlds last nuclear battle By weaving together footage from Bidongs past with a narrative set in its future Nguyen questions the individuals relationship to history trauma nationhood and displacement