Mádl’s Waves makes it onto the shortlist for the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film

On 17 December, the American motion picture academy announced its shortlist of fifteen candidates for the title of Best International Feature Film, and the Czech drama Waves was one of the films. The last time a Czech submission made it this far was Agnieszka Holland’s Charlatan in 2021. The final nominees will be announced on 17 January.

Waves has already been seen by more than a million viewers since its cinematic premiere on 15 August. The film’s world premiere was on 1 July 2024 at the 58th KVIFF, where it was very positively received and went on to earn the Právo Audience Award. At the festival, director Jiří Mádl sat down for an interview at KVIFF.TV Park with Čestmír Strakatý. We here offer an abridged version of the interview, focused mainly on the circumstances behind the making of Waves.

You’re the youngest actor ever to win the Crystal Globe for Best Actor. That was in 2008, when you were 21. What does it feel like to come back here?

It’s always a good feeling. Of course, I say to myself that another Globe would be nice, but let’s not kid ourselves. (laughs)

No chance this year, right? Waves isn’t in the main competition.

It isn’t. So no Globe this year, but maybe another year with something else. Even so, I like to visit the festival. It’s a true celebration of film. For at least one week, it feels like film is the most important thing in the world. That’s a pleasant feeling for a filmmaker.

You’ve got all these people here listening to what you’ve got to say. That in itself is a somewhat specific experience. And not just here: people at the festival in general are hungry to hear what actors have to say. That’s a pretty good feeling, right?

I think that even after 20 years I can’t fully describe it in a way that will provide a satisfactory answer. I guess I’m just kind of used to it by now.

Sixteen years ago, in 2008, you said that you hoped that your audience would grow up with you, with your films, that they would mature. This year, you’re here with Waves, which is a very serious and heavy drama. Do you feel that your prediction has come true? That the people who first followed you with The Rafters and films like that have really grown up with you?

I think that part worked out. Maybe the older generation even followed the same path I did as an actor. The younger generation maybe less so, because the more serious films that I did later on, the ones that won awards, aren’t really shown on TV and so on. So there’s a kind of built-in bias with the younger generations, who only associate me with a certain type of film. After all these 20 years, the youngest generation still puts me in that box that I managed to escape a year after making those films.

So you’re stuck with The Rafters?

I feel like that’s how the younger generations see it.

Does it bother you? At least they know you, and that’s good, right?

That’s good. I can guide them to the more serious films later. It’s okay. (laughs)

Waves is having its premiere here. Is it a dream come true? Is it the great film you’ve been waiting for?

Definitely. It’s a dream come true maybe less as a director than as a screenwriter, because I’d always wanted to write it. Ever since I came across the subject in 2009, I’d wanted to turn it into a film. I thought maybe some Hollywood director would shoot it based on my script. In that sense, I can say it’s a screenwriter’s dream come true. And as a director, I’m just glad I somehow made it to the end with my last ounce of strength.

What Hollywood directors did you offer it to?

None. (laughs) It’s a strange paradox that I originally wrote all three films that I directed with the idea that someone else would direct them. It’s quite interesting that now I’ll be writing something will the express idea that: Yes, Jiří, you’re going to shoot this.

This is the first time?

Yes.

And do you know what it’ll be?

I’ve got three subjects. But I can’t say that I’ve decided on one yet.

You wrote all three of your films for someone else: Waves, On the Roof, To See the Sea… Was that a mistake? When you look back on it now, did you manage to film them how you envisioned it when you wrote the script?

I’m glad that in the end I directed them myself. It’s difficult to say… but no – I’m glad! I think the films are how I wanted them to be.

I think you can safely say that. Nobody can know otherwise anyway. (laughs)

Modesty isn’t befitting of anyone anymore. I’ve come to realize I shouldn’t engage in it. (laughs)

Waves explores the months – or rather, the year, months, and days before the 1968 Soviet invasion by our so-called allies. You said you’d been wanting to look at this subject since 2009, when you were 22. Is it important to you personally? Why did you choose this topic?

For me as a Czech, it’s just as important as for all of you sitting here. Probably no more and no less. I’m not so much interested in the setting. I see the historical events as a more of a backdrop, and what’s most important for me are the emotions. I think I was 22 when I read a chapter in a book about the history of Czechoslovak Radio called From the Microphone to the Listeners. I was most fascinated by the emotions that emanated from it. It wasn’t fiction, but I was already imagining what those people must have felt at the time. What a terribly difficult moment it is when someone hands you a piece of paper and says: Go and read these lies on the radio, because we need the world to look at the invasion as them coming to help us. When I read that scene, which really happened and which is in the film, I knew I wanted to write the film. An ordinary man is called into an office, and he must decide whether, in the years to come, at home and abroad, people will know the truth about his country. I found that immensely powerful.

It’s all the more complicated because the character you’re talking about, played brilliantly by Vojta Vodochodský, is also being blackmailed thanks to his collaboration with the StB. He signed, he’s under pressure, it’s all very vividly portrayed. We really see how difficult those times were for people, how easily they came under pressure from the system, which could then squeeze them. That’s one side of it. Then there’s also the moment of betrayal. I won’t give it away, although people who know history know what it is. It’s also based on a real event, isn’t it?

I’m not sure which moment you mean exactly, but since we don’t want to drop any spoilers, the less said the better. (laughs) A lot of things in the movie are based on real events, although I sometimes attribute them to other people than how it really was. To tell the story of one year at Czechoslovak Radio in two hours, you have to condense it all. Something happened to that guy, something happened to someone else, but there’s no time for it all. For example, the main character is a composite of three technicians.

This also relates to emotions: Was it important for you to show the complexity of a time when it can be difficult to say who is a villain and who is a hero? People resisted or didn’t resist in different ways.

That’s a difficult question, but I don’t think it was so hard to tell the two apart. And I only say that because of what I was told by the journalists from International Life whom I met. They said that, in some ways, it was a terribly simple time. It was easy to know what was evil. Of course, people changed over time, and they might really take a different stance because of some event. I wouldn’t look at it through the lens of today, because we live at a time when moral values are relativized, when the evil we face uses the exact same rhetoric as us. And so things are presented as if in a mirror, and people who are less capable of telling truth from lies, or who follow what their friends and family say, or who are guided by what they’re going through in life – they might not see the difference. But that wasn’t an issue back then, I think. Things were quite clear. Of course, what you’re talking about – that someone could be tempted by evil – that really could be in a flash, often under pressure. I don’t know now which reporter it was, but he compared it to a car crash. Just one moment of inattention, and suddenly you “have no choice” but to collaborate. All of a sudden, a person was under so much pressure that it took all their strength to fight it.

As you mentioned yourself, today is similar in some ways. But it is a misleading analogy, and a not entirely good one. We probably shouldn’t embrace it fully, but at the same time one can see certain similarities. Is this relevant for you in any way?

It’s absolutely relevant for me. But you should understand that it wasn’t important to me. I don’t think of myself as a political or social filmmaker. I was interested in the emotions and not so much in the background.

Human stories, relationships?

Yes, human stories.

You mentioned how you combined three technicians into one, played by Vojta Vodochodský. But Vojta Kotek plays the real character of Jiří Dienstbier, Martin Hofmann plays Luboš Dobrovský (I almost said Jan, but that’s his son and the film’s creative producer.) How hard was it to connect the actors with people whom everyone except maybe the youngest audience members knows? How difficult was the casting?

It was difficult, but an interesting thing happened. When you’re making a movie, there’s different pressures – from the producers, from the state cinema fund. Everybody has entirely legitimate ideas, which I totally accept. One idea was that I would be offered actors who looked like the characters. I didn’t want that at all. For me, the actors’ energy was much more important. I wanted them to be a little like those people. I’ll give you an example: Tana Pauhofová as Vera Štovíčková – a woman possessing tenderness and humor, but above all a professional who does her job on the basis of us living in a democratic country, on the basis of democratic principles. I had met Mr. Dobrovský, and I wanted to find an actor who would match his energy. As a bonus, with just a little make-up the actors really do look like the people they play. But their appearance was secondary. My main goal was to get to know the journalists and then feel it from the actors. That’s one reason why not all the journalists are depicted. Sláva Volný and the others aren’t there because I felt that I hadn’t gotten to know them well enough through their colleagues’ recollections. So I didn’t feel capable of telling their stories. It was exactly the same with the actors. If I hadn’t found the right actors to portray certain journalists, I might have tried out a completely different journalist and looked for an actor for that role. Maybe.

I wonder whether the route you took in terms of casting wasn’t more difficult for you as director.

It was. I think that, fortunately, this film chose a bunch of more difficult paths to follow.

The entire interview can be found HERE. In it, you’ll learn how hard it was for Jiří Mádl to combine high school with a budding acting career, what it’s like to be publicly lynched because of a political ad, and whether he feels more like an actor or a director. Or perhaps a screenwriter?