The White Water Lilies

• Genre: Feature Film
• Year: Film in Preparation
• Screenplay: Bojan Labovič
• Director: Bojan Labovič
• Cast: Casting Still in Process

Story

A love film from the novel of the same name by Ferdo Godina

Late 1930ies. Great changes taking place around the world only insignificantly affect the region along the Mura River. The war arising across Europe seems somewhat distant. However, it is a time that will radically interfere with the life of Arpad Zrim.
The life of this thirty-year-old catholic vicar would have taken another turn, if it had not been for his unmarried mother. To hide this shameful illegitimacy and with the help of the local priest, she unknowingly assigns Arpad, in his early youth, to clerical life. Under the concealed control of his spiritual father’s vigilant eye who also influences the deeds of his mother Arpad clashes with the restrictions of his profession.
His torment becomes even greater, when he is transferred from a remote village in a hilly landscape to the lively and multi-ethnical centre of a deanship. Soon after his arrival he falls deeply in love with Rahela, the beautiful daughter of a Jewish merchant. This intimate act leads him to the inevitable conflict with the social norms and the pressure of his professional surrounding which, step by step, entangles him in its hidden games. Arpad’s mother, who, due to social rules, repeatedly and unknowingly helps to push her son, torn between ideals and love, to the bane of his life, is also woven into the plan of the clergy.
In the abstruse attachment to his egoistic mother, Arpad, together with Rahela in a strongly intimate relationship, breaks the fetters of their forbidden love. Despite her youth Rahela is more determined in overcoming the obstacles that stand against her personal choice and freedom. Especially, when she is carrying their child. The ideals of the inwardly torn Arpad vanish completely at the moment when Rahela‘s parents achieve taking the unborn child away from him and so they move to Hungary …
… The war starts. It seems that Arpad will lose this battle, which in the end he fights with himself. Will the self-confident Rahela win? She returns from Hungary at a time when, in the backwaters of the Mura River, the white tulips blossom.

Crew

Screenplay: Bojan Labovič
Special Script Co-worker: Branko Soemen
Director:Bojan Labovič
Director of Photography: Simon Tanšek
Production Designer: Matjaž Pavlovec
Costume Designer: Belinda Radulovič
Make-up Artist: Mirjam Kavčič
Producer: Franci Zajc 

Cast

Casting Still in Process

Bojan Labovič

Born 1961 in Maribor. Graduated in documentary directing and screenwriting from the Prague film academy FAMU. He is the author of several documentary and dramatised documentary films and serials as well as various television broadcasts and scenic installations. His field of work involves both aestheticised and clear elementary form, where the leading role is an everyday human placed in a space that very often he/she has no influence on.
Among over forty different film and television productions for which he is credited as director, screenwriter or author as a whole, there are some that need to be especially mentioned: the first film portrait of Ivan Kramberger − My First Book, a narration about a new boundary in Haloze highlands − A Century Story, the 10-part television series − The Third Eye, a portrait of Dr Vekoslav Grmič − Slavko's Path, the 2-part documentary about the decline of the Maribor automobile industry − The Dead Giant, a story about the Swiss writer and psychoanalist Paul Parin − And Then Goldy Says You Need to Write This Down Once…, and the dramatised documentary Maribor Courtyards. He was also active in theatre, where he staged La Strada, from the film script by F. Fellini. For his work, he has received the Grand Prix at the Central European Television Festival, the Vikend Award and the Glazer Credential.