Sladké století

"The twentieth century sweeps through Central Europe like a storm. Everything is in flux: frontiers, constitutions, governments, ideologies and political slogans. Few people can expect to live in peace and fulfil their ambitions. The Sweet Century is a film about several women who were not destined to lead the lives they planned. 
The twentieth century, now drawing to a close, has been a period of extraordinary social and political upheaval - especially in Eastern Europe. Regimes and ideologies, chosen or imposed, have come and gone. Humanity's struggle for a better future has reached such a pitch that the cost, measured in human corpses, has for the first time in history been counted in millions. No-one born in Central Europe at the beginning of the century has lived their life under the same social order or, in the case of exiles, in the same country. The heroines of our film started out with certain aims in life and, had they been born in a less troubled part of the world, they might well have achieved their ambitions. They might have become newspaper editors, leaders of the Scouting movement, translators, civil servants, mothers... But the whirlwind of history that ravaged Europe left their plans for a 'normal' life in tatters. In most cases, their 'sin' was to follow the dictates of their conscience: they helped students flee the country when, after anti-communist demonstrations, they were threatened with reprisals; or they encouraged Boy Scouts to protest - in short, they expressed, in one way or another, their opposition to the emerging communist dictatorship. But the brutal power whose aim was to create 'the most just society, where people can breathe in liberty and freedom' intervened, changing the course of their lives, ruthlessly and irreparably, for many years to come. As the number of surviving victims of this 'struggle for a better future' slowly dwindles, I feel there is an urgent need to record their testimony on film before it is too late. The Sweet Century is a modest attempt to address that need."
(Helena Trestiková)