Privatization

About

The “voucher privatization” (post-communist distribution of vouchers to general public aimed to bring private capital into state-owned companies) laid the foundations for the current structure of socioeconomic and political forces in the public sphere, affected hundreds of thousands of lives, and became a cornerstone of the modern myth about regained freedom. Many personal stories turning around the voucher privatization contain a fairy-tale motif “what if”: – “What life could I have if I had chosen a different investment strategy?” – “What would my life look like if my parents had turned extremely rich back then?” – “What if grandpa left shares that nobody knows about?”... The concepts of voucher and general privatizations mirror the global and individual histories of the Czech Republic and of each of its citizens.

The production narrates unknown stories involving the voucher privatization – dreams and the desire for freedom, naivety, ruthless family disputes over power and property. The turbulent times that birthed the myth of the new National Revival and the constant flow of investments hardly left any time for the people to concentrate on themselves, perceive themselves as living beings, sense their limits of growth, and consciously embrace their mortality. Indeed, one of the well-known stories associated with the voucher privatization ends in a tragic helicopter crash.

At the peak of lockdown, a billionaire dies during a luxury vacation at the top of a remote glacier, where his rocket success in the 1990s brought him. His life ends in absolute silence and isolation, in which he wished to hide from public view. How is it possible that despite the decades of unsolicited media attention and endless questions about “the source and effects of his astronomical wealth on his life”, no one hears him when he is dying...