Bílá Voda (White Water)

Bílá Voda, or White Water, a remote village hidden in the mountains...

Two young girls consecrated to God — Tobie and Evarista — arrive in the village the last September night of 1950, when the communist regime interned all Czechoslovak nuns in concentration convents. They are forced to labour in the local factory together with all other nuns. Tobie is crippled forever by the hard work, while Evarista has her vow of chastity forcibly broken and suffers humiliation in a communist prison. Yet the wardens cannot deprive her of her faith and loyalty to the order. Can a nun rebel against the secular and ecclesiastical authorities, stand against the regime and the collaborating church? The hardest battle must be fought within one’s own soul…

The latest novel by Kateřina Tučková, awarded with the 2022 Czech State Award for Literature, narrates the history of women’s religious orders under the communist regime, which is an often-overlooked chapter of the Czech history, and the role of women in the Catholic Church.

Czechs are considered the most atheistic nation in the world; indeed, only about one-third of our country’s population professes any religion. One percent of Czechs are even “conscious atheists who reject the existence of a God they know something about.” The truth is that we tend to believe in various ideologies to make for the lacking belief in God. Indeed, even today, many people would not hesitate to put an end to the institution that was responsible for the Inquisition, the Crusades and the Wars of Religion. Nonetheless, are those who fight against Evarista fanatics who have been given the chance to release their inherent sadism, or are their acts driven by true belief in making the world a better, safer, freer and happier place?

• Stage director: Michal Vajdička
• Approximate running time: 3 hours 10 minutes, 1 intermission (20 minutes) minutes
• Language: In Czech, surtitles in English
• Recommended age 15+

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