Houston, We Have a Problem

So well put together story that one think it could have happened...

In this captivating feature film debut from director Zhiga Virc you will find everything exciting: there is a covert agreement between John F. Kennedy and Josip Tito of Yugoslavia, disclosed top-secret documents, and international intrigue during the Cold War.

"Houston, We Have a Problem!" blurs the boundaries between reality and fiction as it delves into the mythology surrounding the start of America's race to be the first nation to send a man to the moon and the purported multibillion-dollar agreement behind America's acquisition of Yugoslavia's space program in the early 1960s.

This documentary film is a fascinating meta-examination of Cold War foreign diplomacy and myth-building, as well as the lies, manipulation, and dirty games that go into the construction of a national identity. It deftly combines archival footage with contemporary interviews with philosopher Slavoj Zhizhek and some of the key figures in the film's investigation, including a former Yugoslav space engineer, an American historian, and a retired Yugoslav People's Army general.

Perhaps after watching that, you will see why Yugoslavia was destroyed by bombardment.

Interesting piece of art!

This movie is really an amazing peace of work. I took everything it told me as truth and let it create certain feelings. At the end I went back to an assumption that it is fabricated but the feelings remained very solid and suddenly a lot of other information about the past started to fill in the gaps where fabrication was removed. Everything started to make more sense. It was not a pleasant discovery. It's one thing to feel as a victim of some powerful force, but to finally realize your own active role in the abuse, I think it is even harder to accept. Every movie, no matter what genre, is some type of manipulation and an attempt from author to present his own illusion. This movie seems like it is an illusion constructed to deliver the truth, indirectly.

By wikipedia this is a docufiction-mockumentary film by Slovenian director Ziga Virc.

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 Zizek 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. That's the crucial message.

At the end i think it is a good movie but actualy is not a Documentary.

While this documentary promised a deep look into a deal between Yugoslavia and the United States to transfer space technology to NASA, there is not enough new information presented to even fill a short magazine article. Most of the film is padded with stories about Yugoslavia's history, Tito and a single scientist from Yugoslavia who travels back to his home country for the first time in 50 years.

What little information is presented comes from an American historian who seems to be the only one in the documentary who speaks English. Subtitles are needed for most of the interviews in this film.

In any event, if you want to see a documentary that gives a passing mention to the Yugoslavian space program and more of a backstory into US-Yugoslavian relations from the 1960's to 1970's you may enjoy this. Beyond the first 30 minutes or so don't expect to learn much about NASA, the space program or what this title is supposed to focus on.