CZECH DREAM (CESKY SEN)
Tschechien 2004 – Director: Vit Klusak, Filip Remunda – Original language: Czech – Subtitles: English – Length: 87 min.
The biggest consumer hoax in the history of the post-communist Czech Republic: Two film students used a state grant to organise a huge publicity campaign for the promotion of the (entirely fictitious) biggest and cheapest "hypermarket" ever seen in Prague, a city where these consumer temples have spread in the last decade. They persuaded advertising agencies, graphic designers, jingle-writers and even crowd-psychologists from the Czech army to design the marketing strategy for the new store, the "Czech Dream". Lured by flyers, posters and teasing slogans like "Don't come!" or "Don't spend", thousands of visitors gathered on the opening day, only to realise that the dream was an illusion and the store nothing else but an empty façade on a field.
Czech Dream, dubbed "a film reality show" by its directors, is an ingenious and funny satire on consumerism and the growing spending spree in a post-communist society, revealing the power of the advertising industry to build fantasies, and create empty dreams, not only in Eastern-Europe … A children's choir sings the sarcastic jingle: "It will be a big bash / If you don't have the cash / Get a loan and scream / I want to fulfil my dream."
"An original, cheeky treatise on capitalism, with more than a whiff of exploitation, Czech Dream follows two film students who used a state grant to promote the opening of an entirely fictitious big-box mega-market in a Prague field. The resulting scandal, alternately hilarious and discomfiting, illuminates the waking nightmare of consumerism in a country still adjusting to the strengths and pitfalls of the concept." Eddie Cockrell, Variety 12th July '04
"It may well be the funniest European film of the year" Economist, 7th August '04
"This year 's best Czech film was the unclassifiable documentary Czech Dream" Peter Hames, Sight & Sound, September '04
Awards: Best Czech Documentary Film and Audience Award, Jihlava 2004; The Bitter Cup Award of the Journalism and Mass Communication Faculty, Sofia 2005; FIPRESCI Award, Ljubljana 2004
English/Original Title: Czech Dream. Writer: Vit Klusak, Filip Remunda. Editing: Zdenek Marek. Music: V.O Bauer, David Hysek. Production: Taskovski Films Ltd. Producer: Irena Taskovski.
