The idea for the Ulysses’ Shelter documentary came from the period of lockdown which almost completely stopped the project activities in the first half of 2020. It became obvious that the filming of what will come next will be a document of the collective struggle, and we wanted to make note of how the young writers, poets and translators were making effort to keep creating and remain active on the artistic scene.

From November 2020 till March 2022 each resident who came to the residency on Mljet was filmed by a four members film crew (Ivan Sršen, producer and the narrator of the film, Sergej Stanojkovski, director, Dario Domitrović, cameraman and editor and Daniel Golem, the sound engineer) for several days on different locations on the island.

The result of the filming is interviews with six writers who came to the Mljet residency in the time of the pandemic. With seven more writers who either came to Mljet before the pandemic, or couldn’t come at all because of the pandemic circumstances, online interviews were recorded and made a part of the film.

The documentary tells a story of the isolation, which is an integral part of writers’ daily routine, and it is also a specific of Sandorf’s Mljet residency, because its location is isolated from the inhabited area, about 2,5 kilometers from the nearest village, in the midst of the beautiful Mljet National Park. Above all, the self-isolation everyone went through in pandemic was a subject the film referred to and drew comparison to the usual lives of the writers, poets and translators and what messages and experiences they can share with the audience that would make everyone understand these times of pressure and constraint more easily.

The beautiful landscapes of Mljet contrast the subject and in that way enhance the message of endurance and understanding and culture and literature as a universal language.