OCCUPATION 1968

Documentary project about August 1968 is a collective subjective look on the soldiers of “friendly” armies and their thoughts and impressions about Czechoslovak occupation and their tasks within it.
The main question is, how “a small person in Europe” behaves in the front of so known “big history”? Which role plays personal responsibility, preservation of personal point of view or moral, and what happens to it in the moment, when they have to choose between saving their life or obeying the rules? Occupation of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, for the “friendly armies” was of Warsaw agreement, was totally different event, than the one known to us – Czech and Slovak people. It happened at the same time and place, but the coming occupants had very different view of it. Which feelings had the soldiers, who were send to foreign country to “make the order” there? In this film we would be interested in soldiers of different nationalities and “satire pieces”, starting with the soldiers, who just made what they were told to and finishing with the highest ones, who planned the strategy.
In order to get the most diverse views on this complicated topic, we decided to choose five directors from five countries of the former Warsaw Pact, which participated in the occupation of Czechoslovakia – Russia, Poland, Germany, Hungary and Bulgaria. Here are the titles of the five documentaries in Occupation 1968: An Unnecessary Hero (Bulgaria), Voices in the Forest (Germany), Red Rose (Friendship and Love in the Time of Occupation) (Hungary), Soldiers' Wives & Spies (Poland), The Last Mission of General Ermakov (Russia).