Synopsis:
The Great Water begins when Lem Nikodinoski, an elderly Macedonian politician, suffers a heart attack and is rushed to the hospital. As doctors frantically treat him, Lems's mind travels back in...
The Great Water begins when Lem Nikodinoski, an elderly Macedonian politician, suffers a heart attack and is rushed to the hospital. As doctors frantically treat him, Lems's mind travels back in time to when he was a twelve year-old growing up in a Macedonian orphanage...
World War II has just ended, and like so many of his peers, Lem has been orphaned by war. With no family and no place to live, he wanders the war-torn countryside aimlessly, only to be picked up by communist soldiers and taken to a children's orphanage for ideological "reprogramming." As a child whose parents were regarded as "enemies of the Revolution," Lem, along with his peers, will be forced to accept Stalin as God for the good of the Communist Party and the new Macedonia.
The orphanage itself is housed in a medieval fortress with high stone walls separating it from a vast lake. Headmaster Comrade Ariton, a rigid yet ambitious man, and the Warden's assistant, Comrade Olivera, a girl who obsessively worships the Communist ideology of the Great Stalin, rule the orphanage by fear and discipline.
But the orphanage has its secrets. Late at night, Verna, Ariton's beautiful wife, almost magically appears and walks by the walls of the fortress. None of the guards can see her, only Lem, as she brings him what he seeks most: hope.
With few friends, Lem looks to Isaac, a mysterious 13-year-old boy who has the courage to question the harsh communist authoritarians who run the orphanage, and the strength to endure the brutal consequences of such actions. With organized religion prohibited and no higher power to look to for guidance, both boys know their survival rests on each other's strength.
The special bond the two share is forever shattered when Lem, in a fit of rage after discovering Olivera's blossoming romantic relationship with Isaac, destroys a sculpture of Stalin which Olivera had made. Isaac is accused of the crime, and suffers the punishment alone. When Lem goes to Ariton to confess what he did, Ariton decides he should keep what he did to himself because such a grievous act would forever destroy his standing in the party.
As punishment for allowing the act to occur, Ariton is relieved of his post as headmaster of the orphanage. Stricken with grief, he attempts suicide only to have his wife stop him. Suicide will condemn him to eternal damnation, so she then shoots him herself at his request.
Ironically Lem is actually rewarded for his loyalty to the party by being allowed to participate in a State-run academic competition, and his success at the contest allows him to leave the orphanage.
--© Picture This! Entertainment
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