Director: Jiří Mádl
Set against the tightening grip of Czechoslovak state censorship in 1968, Waves follows a radio station willing to gamble everything to keep independent reporting alive. Director Jiří Mádl frames the Prague Spring not as distant history but as a newsroom thriller playing out in real time.
What is Waves about?
Brothers Tomáš and Pája, orphaned and bound to each other, are pulled into the same current from opposite sides. Tomáš works as a technician at Czechoslovak Radio, part of a team quietly defying the Communist Party's propaganda machine and the police pressure that comes with it. When state security officers corner him and demand he inform on his own colleagues, Tomáš is forced into an impossible calculation: protect the people he works alongside or shield his younger brother from the fallout of refusing them. The film tracks how that pressure ripples outward through the station and the family, turning a workplace drama into a story about the cost of resistance.
Cast & crew
Vojtěch Vodochodský and Ondrej Stupka play the brothers at the center of the story, with Tatiana Pauhofová, Stanislav Majer, and Vojtěch Kotek rounding out the radio station's staff and the wider circle pulled into the conflict.
Context & significance
Waves comes from Czech director Jiří Mádl and draws its tension from an actual chapter of Czechoslovak history, when the brief liberalization of the Prague Spring collided head-on with Communist Party control over information. The Czech-Slovak co-production reconstructs the radio station itself as a battleground, using the mechanics of broadcasting — technicians, transmitters, censors — as the engine of its drama rather than street protest alone.
Where & how to watch
Waves is available on K-Time with a free account login, complete with Persian dubbing and Farsi subtitles for viewers following the station's story in their own language. The platform's Farsi-first design means diaspora audiences can move through historical dramas like this one without losing nuance in translation.