Pallade Veneta - Czech film takes 'conspiracy nuts' on Ukraine war tour

Director Robin Kvapil took Petra, Ivo and Nikola on a two-week tour of Ukraine's war-ravaged cities, shelters and cemeteries last October, equipping them with handheld cameras to capture the experience.

Before the shooting, Kvapil, 43, paid two visits to Ukraine to prepare the film and was shocked by the war.

"That's an experience you won't get out of your head. It's for life. Seeing these places will simply change you," the bearded, bespectacled director told AFP in an interview.

"As a filmmaker, I have no other weapon than film, and I wanted to stand up to the war in some way," he added.

He chose Petra, Ivo and Nikola out of 60 Czechs who had answered his ad looking for people nursing doubts about the reality of the war after succumbing to disinformation.

A survey by pollsters Ipsos indicated last year that most Czechs think Russia is using disinformation to skew public opinion.

One in three respondents also told Ipsos they had believed disinformation on more than one occasion over their lifetime.

The Czech intelligence service BIS said in a recent report that "in 2024, society continued to grapple with the spread of disinformation in the public space, originating both directly from Russia and from domestic actors".

- 'Contact with reality' -

The film's title, "The Great Patriotic Trip", is a parody of "The Great Patriotic War", the Russian name for the Soviet-German part of World War II.

The premiere is scheduled for August 21, the anniversary of the 1968 Soviet-led invasion of former communist Czechoslovakia which crushed the Prague Spring movement deemed too liberal by Moscow.

The film begins by drawing a parallel between 1968 and the invasion of Ukraine and goes on to say that "Russia is leading a disinformation war against the whole of Europe", before introducing the three protagonists.

Petra, whose parents were hardline communists, dismissed the war in Ukraine as "nonsense".

Ivo said he believed information he finds on the internet "even if it's not true", admitting he is a "conspiracy nut".

And Nikola said that Russian President Vladimir Putin "is the only man in the world who can stop the Western ideological madness".

All three protagonists' surnames are not divulged.

Kvapil, who has won several Czech awards for his documentaries, told AFP his goal was not to change the three but "to capture their contact with reality".

He admitted that while he tried hard to stay out of the film, he was stunned on many occasions, like when Petra started to sing the Soviet anthem in a van en route to the war zone.

"Everything that appears in the film is there because it's surprising in some way. I was trying to pass on the energy of my own astonishment," he said.

- 'All fake!' -

Petra got a surprise herself during a visit to mass graves in the eastern Ukrainian town of Izyum, which was occupied for several months at the beginning of the war before it was retaken by Ukrainian forces.

Ukraine said in September 2022 it had found more than 440 graves in Izyum.

Petra found the pleasant smell of pine trees and fine sand resembling a beach inappropriate for the dreary place.

"I know why this place feels so weird! Because it's all fake!" she then exclaimed, calling the graveyard "outstanding material for Ukrainian propaganda and nurturing hatred towards Russia".

"I took the shooting as an exercise in inner tolerance which I undergo all my life," Kvapil said.

Despite witnessing many horrors of the war, Kvapil's protagonists do not seem to be convinced as they return home.

"I still have the same opinion," Ivo said after the trip, while Petra insisted she has "not been reeducated".

"I'm not a naive fool to believe in the strength of films changing society. But I think this one can do some good," Kvapil said.

M.Jacobucci--PV