DOBERDOB - A NOVEL BY A REBEL

DOBERDOB - ROMAN UPORNIKA

By Martin TURK

BELA FILM D.O.O. - as PROD

Biography - Completed 2015

Creative documentary about the first world war events told through the great, but rather neglected Slovenian novel “Doberdob”. Film also deals with an intriguing life of its author Prežihov Voranc.

    • Year of production
    • 2015
    • Genres
    • Biography, Historical, Documentary
    • Countries
    • SLOVENIA
    • Languages
    • SLOVENIAN
    • Budget
    • 0.3 - 0.6 M$
    • Duration
    • 74 mn
    • Director(s)
    • Martin TURK
    • Writer(s)
    • Martin TURK
    • Producer(s)
    • Ida WEISS ( BELA FILM D.O.O.), Mateja SMISL (RTV SLOVENIJA), Martin REPINC (RAI - FVG)
    • Synopsis
    • In 1930, the publishing house Cankarjeva založba announced that the war novel Doberdob by Prežihov Voranc will be published. It describes the tragic stories of the soldiers that fought in the Doberdò plateau where according to historians many Slovenian soldiers battling during World War I bled to death. Writer Prežihov Voranc, with a real name Lovro Kuhar, who was 22 at the time, also fought in there.
      The novel was only published in 1940. During the ten years after its publication was first announced the writer rewrote it three times because the manuscript vanished in strange circumstances several times. While Prežihov Voranc was writing the novel he was also politically active. He was one of the first communists in Slovenia. In 1937 he even became secretary of the Central Committee, which means he was ranked second in the hierarchy of the Yugoslav Communist Party. He was an agent of the Comintern, a traveller who spoke five languages, and he was in touch with several prominent politicians of the period. At the same time he remained personally modest, he kept believing in common man and held values that were less and less consistent with ever so rigorous communist' ideology.
      The novel Doberdob was written in the period when Voranc was mainly living underground due to his active life in politics. The novel is regarded to be the only Slovenian autobiographic novel with World War I topic.