Two students of the Prague Film Academy, Vit Klusak and Filip Remunda, have been awarded money by the Czech Fund for the Support of Cinematography and by public service Czech Television for a somewhat unusual project to make a documentary feature film.

The project, entitled "Cesky sen (The Czech dream)" (using the example of "The American Dream"), rather controversially involves manipulating reality. It started with sustained television and billboard advertising, announcing the opening of a new hypermarket on the outskirts of Prague, named "Cesky sen" which was to offer fantastically low prices. The advertising campaign went on for a month, and the opening of the supermarket was due to take place on Saturday 31st May, 2003 at 10 a.m. The internet pages of the project, in Czech, are here:

http://www.ceskysen.cz/

When, however, throngs of people arrived at the designated site at the advertised time, they discovered only a large canvas through which a door led to an open meadow - no hypermarket. Undeterred, people frantically ran around the meadow, looking for the advertised store and for its bargains. All this was duly recorded by film cameras to be edited into the future feature film. A report of the prank has also been featured on Czech television.

It was the project's intention to warn the public against an uncritical attitude to advertising. The advertising campaign for Cesky sen contained various warning signs, including ambiguous exhortations: "A Hypermarket is opening! Do not go there! Do not spend money! Do not waste time!" - but most bargain hunters did not register the ambiguity. Film and television cameras recorded their frantic search for the non-existent hypermarket without comment.

It is perhaps interesting that major Czech media reacted to this prank with horror, maybe shocked by the fact that someone has dared to propose that advertising should be viewed with suspicion and critical detachment. The main Czech commercial TV station, Nova Television, broadcast an emotional diatribe against "these two pompous, spoiled middle-class brats who have ruthlessly made fun of the weakest of the weak in our society". "People have the right to search for bargains!" "It is not fair to mock ordinary people."

Maybe, however, the project was in defence of ordinary people and their dignity ...

It is perhaps remarkable that for the month-long duration of the campaign, no journalist seems to have actually gone to the advertised site of the new hypermarket. Thus nobody found out that no hypermarket was being built at the site - until the morning of the fake "opening".

A debate is raging currently in the Czech Republic about whether the behaviour of the young filmmakers was ethical. Most media is hurling abuse at them.