Vít Klusák, Filip Remunda / Czech Republic / 2010 / 100 min / Czech with English subtitles
Film covers the hot-blooded dispute over a U.S. military base, as part of the National Missile Defense Program, which is planned for construction in the Woods surrounding Brdy Military Area, a former hiding place for Soviet nuclear rockets during the Cold War.Despite the fact that 73% of Czechs are against the project, the government has continued with negotiations. War! War!! WAR!!! Everything will explode, burn, and die…that’s what readers learn in media coverage from both the supporters and opponents of the US radar base. The Czech Republic found itself the focus of the world's superpowers virtually overnight. Within a single year the country was visited by George Bush, Condoleezza Rice and dozens of lobbyists representing American arms manufacturers. The Russians threatened to aim their nuclear missiles at the Czech Republic. The largest Czech civil movement since the Velvet Revolution came together to protest against the American base. Political scientists treat the situation as a new phase in the Cold War. Two years after the battle for the radar, which we attentively followed with our camera, Barack Obama became the President of the United States. During his speech in Prague, he announced his plan to reduce the stockpiles of nuclear weapons and to achieve an agreement with Russia. A joint team of American and Russian scientists announced that the planned missile defense system does not work at all. Theodore Postol, a member of the team and an MIT Professor, pointed out that for two years; the Pentagon was providing the Czech public with false information. The American and Russian politicians started their negotiations. The Czech Republic has obviously once again become an object of the great-powers competition. A playfully explosive film of our times.
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