ACROSS THE LAKE (Ïðåêó åçåðîòî)
Movie from: 1997
Duration: 83 minutes
Director: Antonio Mitriceski
Screenplay: Tashko Georgievski, Antonio Mitriceski
Leading Roles: Ekrem Ahmeti, Ljupcho Bresliski, Nikola Ristanovski, Agnieszka Wagner
Content: At the very beginning of the movie, the author’s point to the fact that the movie is inspired by a real event and that
the time of the action encompasses a period of several decades. The setting of the action, with the exception of the beginning and the end of
the movie is the Albania of the days when it was "a big bunker, a prison in to which nobody could go, nor escape from, years of madness when
everybody was everybody's enemy." Ohrid, in the years after the war. Young Konstantin Bocvarov meets Elena Zlatarova, a Macedonian from Korca,
Albania, in Ohrid. Strong love develops in the year 1948, a year known for the tragic consequences to the individual destinies of many in the
then Yugoslavia, as well as of many in the neighboring countries, that chose socialism after the pattern of Stalin in the Soviet Union. The
border with neighboring Albania is closed. Communication between the young lovers is impossible. Konstantin longs for Elena who is across the
lake and decides to have an uncertain adventure, a trip across the lake in a rowing boat, in order to get to her. He starts on a journey he
will not come back from for forty years. He gets caught in a storm, loses the oars, loses his direction in space and sets himself off to his
destiny. He is found by an old Albanian on the Albanian shore of the lake. In Albania, the country of bunkers, his story seems impossible to
believe. He is treated as a spy, he is physically tortured, and punished by imprisonment in a camp where there are many like him. After
getting out of the camp, he finds Elena and their life together finally begins. Konstantin finds a job in Tirana, their daughter is born there.
However, life full of stress and misery reflects on the relations between the spouses. Konstantin dreams of going back to his fatherland. But,
instead of going to Ohrid, he again ends up in a camp. Years of agony pass, Elena has only rare opportunities to visit him in the camp. Finally,
after many years, old and exhausted he goes back to Elena in Korca. The daughter, Donka, is a grown girl. Life goes on without many words, but
with a great sorrow for his country. At the end, the time starts to go back. Elena, Konstantin, and their daughter are in Ohrid, the town where
their love began.
Resume: The movie "Across the Lake'" is the debut film of director Antonio Mitriceski. Namely, the movie was made as a dramaturgy
elaboration of one of his previous documentaries, "The Love of Kocho Topencharov," - this time based on the scenario of Mitriceski and writer
Tashko Georgievski.
Both films use the same true story of a resident of Ohrid, Kocho Topencharov, and his wife Elena. "Across the Lake" tells their life story, the
story of two who fall in love and want to be together. However, she lives with her family in Albania, while he lives in Macedonia. But time goes
by, and brings changes. In 1948 - times known as the Informbureau - and the closure of the border between Macedonia and Albania, Kocho,
Konstantin in the movie, is driven by the desire to go to Korcha, Albania, where Elena lives, and rows his small boat across the lake. He
manages this feat, but the Albanian border authorities arrest him for illegal trespassing and sentence him to jail as a spy. This episode is
then followed by long years spent in prison, in Albanian camps, and in exile. Nobody believes that one could come to Albania for love. So,
together with Elena and his daughter, he finds himself in a labyrinth of isolation, closed in a foreign country until 1990 when the borders are
reopened, and when he returns to Ohrid with his family.In short this is the basic story of "Across the Lake". The impression is that the
realization of the movie is on a rather correct professional level, which was to be expected from Mitriceski, who is one of the first Macedonian
directors who graduated from the prominent film Academy in Logj, Poland. In the movie, the background music, composed by George Zamfir, a
Romanian who lives in Paris, is impressive, as is the camerawork of the young Polish cameraman Bartolomiej Maj. The scenographic reconstruction
of the past, an almost forgotten time, was successfully realized by Jerzy Sniezawski and Milan Mladenovic. This is also true for the costumes of
Elena Doncheva. One must mention the very precise editing of the Polish editors Miroslawa Garlicka and Malgorzata Orlowska.
Amongst the numerous and mainly homogenous crew, we meet Kiril Risteski, Vlado Jovanovski, Josif Josifovski, Kiril Pop Hristov, Bedija Begovska,
Ekrem Ahmeti, Ilir Borodani, Aco Dukovski and others, mainly dominated by the protagonists of the two central characters played by Agnieszka
Wagner and Nikola Ristanovski. However, in the artistic sense, Nikola Ristanovski, the protagonist of the central character, Konstantin, and a
debutante in the movie, proves his extraordinary talent, creating the character of a sufferer with great power of artistic transformation.
Sources: Macedonian Cinema Information Center and Cinemateque of Macedonia.
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