The Great Water

Colour, 35 mm
Macedonia, Czech Republic, Germany, USA, 2004, 93 min
Section: Czech Films 2004-2005
Oficiální stránky: www.greatwatermovie.com

Synopsis

Macedonia. Successful politician Lem Nikodinoski is dying in hospital. Herecalls the year 1945 when he was twelve and found himself at a home for the children of ‘fallen enemies’ (traitors and collaborators). The head, Ariton, and his representative Olivera fanatically try to ensure that their wards have no opinion or will of their own,and fall in line with brainwashing drills based on dogmatic communist principles. Isak Kejten comes to the unhappy Lem’s aid. Together the boys defend themselves against the inhumane regime, but only Isak is made to pay. Self recriminations mark Lem ’s entire life. Inspired by the Zhivko Chingo novel, this psychological drama takes up the theme and style of a strand of Yugoslav filmmaking which attempts to come to terms with a past scarred by totalitarian practices and fanaticism. The latter remains a threat in the contemporary lands of the former Yugoslavia.

About the director

Ivo Trajkov (b. 1965, Skopje, Macedonia) studied at Prague ’s Film Academy (FAMU) in 1986-92; he has lectured there in editing since 2004. He is a director, producer, screenwriter and documentarist who also works in television (producing over sixty episodes of the series “Unexplained Deaths ”). His work includes the documentary Duo de Guitares (1992); the made-for-TV movie Jan (1992) about student Jan Zajíc who immolated himself in protest against the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia; a documentary about homosexual relations, Such A Normal Marriage (1996) and another about the kidnapping of Slovak president Kováč ’s son entitled The Testimony of a Concealed Witness (1996). He is cofounder of the World Circle Foundation which supports new artists in the audiovisual sphere. In 1993 he debuted with the light comedy The Canary Connection. Five years later he made the artistic writer-director creation The Past (1998).