Tuesday, January 2, 2007, 8:00 pm
Czech Dream documents the largest consumer hoax the Czech Republic has ever seen. Filip Remunda and Vit Klusak, two of Eastern Europe’s most promising young documentary filmmakers, set out to explore the psychological and manipulative powers of consumerism by creating an ad campaign for something that didn’t exist.
The campaign (designed by a renowned advertising agency) involved television and radio spots, 400 illuminated billboards, 200,000 flyers promoting CZECH DREAM brand products, an advertising song, a website, and advertisements in newspapers and magazines. For two weeks, the streets of Prague were saturated with advertising for the fake hypermarket. The ads proclaimed: “Don’t Go, Don’t Rush, Don’t Spend” drawing over 4,000 people to turn up on the ‘opening day’. On May 31, 2003, they arrived at a green field where, instead of a hypermarket, they found just the dream hypermarket’s façade (10m high and 100m wide).
Czech Dream is a funny and provocative look at the effects of rampant consumerism on a post-communist society. Czech Dream has also caused some controversy, provoking extreme reactions in the Czech people and media and even being discussed in Czech Parliament. With the recent entry of the Czech Republic and other Eastern European countries to the EU, and, with people’s changing attitudes to consumerism and globalization, it is equally relevant to capitalist societies all over the world.
The film has won prizes at festivals in Kraków, Jihlava, Ljubljana and Århus.