Dir: Aleksandar Reljić; Serbia/Bosnia and Herzegovina/Montenegro Documentary; 2023; 58 mins
The island of Mamula guards the entrance to the Bay of Kotor: some 200m in diameter, the Austro-Hungarians built a fortress built atop the island in 1853 to keep out incursions into the bay. In WWII, Italian Axis forces used the island as a concentration camp, torturing the local population in horrendous conditions. In 2016, with the fortress dilapidated and in need of renewal, the Montenegrin government decided to accept a bid to turn the island into a luxury resort.
Reljić’s film follows the dwindling group of camp survivors and local residents who campaign against the luxury resort, returning year upon year to mark the camp’s liberation. Local politics, skullduggery and ideological betrayal hover in the background, but in the foreground remains the palimpsest of history, where a site of torture and misery has been paved over, renewed and renovated into an elegant, high-class experience set amidst a beautiful landscape. The film also turns to local youngsters, who prior to the island’s gentrification, would frequently use it as a quiet summertime spot, seemingly nonchalant about the spectre of history still haunting the place. Where does this history go once one memory has been replaced by another? Mamula All Inclusive asks pertinent and timely questions about the presence of history and heritage in an increasingly lawless, neoliberal world where local concerns are frequently ignored (or even paid off, as some in the film suggests) in favour of luxury high-end experiences frequented by nobody in particular.
