When the imported technology fails to deliver its promised results for the NASA's planned Moon landing, an angry U.S. applies pressure to Tito, including financial blackmail and threats of military action, culminating in a secret CIA plot that triggers the bloody breakup of Yugoslavia.
[1] According to the director Žiga Virc, the intention of the film was to "tell the symbolic story of the rise and fall of Yugoslavia",[8] as well inviting the viewer to decide what is real and what fiction.
[12] The myth became popular in January 2012 when the filmmakers Žiga and Boštjan uploaded a short video clip on YouTube, which received in excess of one million views,[10][13] as well as extensive media attention including by Smithsonian Institution.
[17] The myth is based on several facts: the work The Problem of Space Travel by Herman Potočnik (1892–1929) influenced German, American and Soviet scientists, but it is speculated[by whom?]
[17] Stephen Dalton from The Hollywood Reporter described the film as "consistently witty and entertaining, even when testing the limits of audience gullibility... ultimately less a film about Cold War politics than a sly commentary on our current climate of internet myth-making and 'post-truth' public figures", and that philosopher Slavoj Žižek has a chorus role which warns that comforting fiction is often more appealing than complex fact, "even if it didn’t happen, it’s true.
He noted that the film "acts like a doc but works as myth, not fact; director Ziga Virc doesn’t want audiences to believe what he’s telling them so much as he wants them to think about why they’re so ready to accept any kind of tomfoolery and conspiracy the media puts in front of them".
[19] P. Stuart Robinson from Montages Magazine saw in the film structure parallels with Searching for Sugar Man, and described it as "a minor masterpiece of plausible fabrication, tracking real events with an unwavering satirical eye, and placing them in a kind of perspective that is at once ridiculous and yet surprisingly illuminating.
[10] Jessica Kiang and Nick Schager from Variety and The Village Voice criticized that the "little fun ... depends on falling for its far-fetched premise",[20] and "there are surely more compelling ways to offer it than via a one-note, 88-minute-long joke".