El Shatt – A Blueprint for Utopia

El Shatt in Egypt, in the middle of the desert, was both a haven and a projection. This is where in 1944, based on a deal between the Yugoslavian partisans led by Tito and the British allies, not only a refugee camp for the families of anti-fascist fighters from Dalmatia was built. This is where a model was created for the future Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia – a state that was to build its founding narrative on the people’s liberation fight against fascism and declare collectively organized self-administration its social ideal. Director Ivan Ramljak offers us multifaceted insights into this long-forgotten piece of primordial communist history spelled out in reality. After painstaking research, he combines hundreds of historical photographs and some (few) film recordings of interviews with contemporary witnesses and the lively voices of those who were children back then and are over 80 today. Off-screen narrations of the struggle for survival, solidarity, and lived ideology, full of genuine love and subtle irony, revive a society that tried to build a tower on (moving) sand.

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Direction: Ivan Ramljak

Script: Ivan Ramljak

Cinematography: Boris Poljak

Editing: Jelena Maksimović

Sound: Vladimir Živković

Production: Kompot

Producers: Tibor Keser

Co-production: Horopter Film Production, Kino klub Split

Co-producers: Iva Plemić-Divjak, Mladen Kovačević, Sunčica Fradelić

Format: DCP

Color: Color

Production Country: Croatia, Serbia

Production Year: 2023

Duration: 96'

Contact: Split Screen

Awards/Distinctions: Audience Award, Special Mention ― Mediterranean Film Festival Split (2023), Audience Award, Best Editor Award, Best Cinematographer Award ― Liburnia Film Festival (2023)

Ivan Ramljak

Filmography

2009 Liberation in 26 Pictures (short)
2016 Islands of Forgotten Cinemas (short)
2018 Home of The Resistance
2020 Once Upon a Youth
2023 El Shatt – A Blueprint for Utopia