PRE-WAR COMEDY
Directed by Vit Klusak and Filip Remunda

The story of STAR WARS, the COLD WAR and the WAR ON TERROR in one small Czech village.

CZECH PEACE – from the creators of the fake hypermarket comedy CZECH DREAM.

As part of its National Missile Defense Program, the US plans to build a military base in the Czech Republic, 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. Supporters of the base claim that it will strengthen the country's defense against the global threats of the 21st century. Opponents, on the other hand, point out that the plan essentially shifts the Iron Curtain toward the east; they also insist that it represents an attempt by the USA to rule the world.

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. Supporters of the base use threats from the War on Terror, saying “rogue states” can’t wait to shower the country with rockets. Opponents claim the same thing will happen if the radar is built. According to both parties war is inevitable.

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, Condoleeza 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. People are even willing to fight on public squares over the subject of the radar base. Peace activists occupied the military area where the radar is to be built and declared it the independent state of PEACELAND. They were soon arrested under dramatic circumstances. Czech politicians are preparing for a serious battle over the radar in Parliament. Opposition deputies complain in the press that representatives of the arms industry have invited them to private dinners. Political scientists treat the situation as a new phase in the Cold War.

“The building of the extraordinarily powerful and technically advanced American radar base would reduce us to a tool in the unilateral American foreign policy focused on the so-called war on terrorism, a policy that also aspires to military domination of the universe. But this war has in fact strengthened terrorism, destroyed Iraq, destabilized the entire region and is ending in the prisons of Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib. Thorough protection against the dangers of war and terrorism demands the reduction of world tensions, not new bases that only exacerbate the hostility.”
Jan Neoral, Mayor of Trokavec

“In a few years, when those countries we assume are developing weapons of mass destruction actually have them, it will be better for our security to have the radar shield.”
Karel Schwarzenberg, Czech Minister of Foreign Affairs and member of the Trilateral Commission

A feature-length documentary about Czechs not knowing whether to invite a foreign army to the country, having already experienced Soviet occupation, and likewise conscious of the current controversial War on Terror.

A playfully explosive film of our times.