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Ahead of the Oscar nominations being announced Jan. 23, where “Waves” is hoping for recognition after being shortlisted for Best International Film, it led the pack this past week at the Czech Lion Awards — Czech Republic’s equivalent of the Academy Awards — with 14 nominations.

“Waves” was mentioned in numerous categories, including best director and screenplay for Jiří Mádl. Actors Vojtěch Vodochodský, Tatiana Pauhofová, Martin Hofmann and Stanislav Majer were nominated in their respective categories.

The film was also nominated in below-the-line crafts, including for cinematography, editing, sound design, music, stage design, costume design and makeup and hairstyling.

The success of “Waves” at the Czech Lion Awards and its shortlist mention for Best International Film at the upcoming Academy Awards comes after much success back home. After its debut at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, where it won the top audience award, the film was released in Czech theaters in August,...

Before he began his career as a writer-director, Jiří Mádl was at journalism school when he first found out about the story of a group of brave Czech journalists who would later become the subject of his third feature Waves.

“As a punishment for not having proper attendance at the seminars, I got this assignment to read a historic book about Czechoslovakian Radio,” Mádl said, discussing his movie at Deadline’s Contenders Film: International showcase. “I knew that I really wanted to turn this into a screenplay and it’s stayed in my head since 2009.”

Waves, which is the Czech Republic’s official entry into the International Oscar race this year, is set during the 1968 Prague Spring and explores the dramatic events of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia from the point of view of journalists working in the International News Office of Czechoslovak Radio.

Set during a period where rock-and-roll...

Just as the Oscar Best Picture race remains wide open as 2024 comes to an end, there’s a similar sense of excitement mounting about the breadth and range of films competing for Best International Feature Film. The submissions process found 85 of the 89 films presented eligible, but the real work starts now, in terms of whittling those down first to a shortlist of 15 and then to the final five.

Perhaps more so than in recent years, the diversity is eye-popping, ranging from action thrillers and personal dramas to intimate documentaries. The cross-section is well represented at Deadline’s Contenders Film: International showcase, which kicks off today beginning at 9 a.m. Pt.

Click here to launch the livestream.

As ever, this year’s lineup offers a snapshot of film festival highlights, taking us on a whistle-stop tour of the big five — Sundance, Berlin, Cannes, Venice and Toronto — with titles that made an impact at events in Warsaw,...

A new energy flowed in the Czechoslovakia after Alexander Dubcek became its leader in 1968. The statesman championed reforms that expanded freedom of speech, protection of press rights and economic programs prioritizing working class people without radically disrupting the nation’s communist framework. The Soviet Union loathed the plan and sought to suppress it with force. Their military intervention, in which the government and its Warsaw Pact allies sent in troops to end that period now known as the Prague Spring.

In Waves, the Czech Republic’s submission for the 2025 Oscars, Jirí Mádl crafts a propulsive thriller about a team of journalists doggedly pursuing the truth in the months before the Prague Spring and the days of the Soviet Union’s aggressive occupation. The film is inspired by true events, which Mádl came across while researching how the International News Office of Czechoslovak Radio operated in the ’60s. At the time,...

As the third anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine approaches, there could be no better time to revisit the tumultuous events of 1968 in what was then Czechoslovakia. In August of that year, Russian tanks rolled into Prague – along with the armies of five countries within the Soviet bloc – to crush Czechoslovakia’s new, homegrown version of communism, dubbed by foreign media “socialism with a human face.”

Student demonstrators were murdered, the country’s new leaders deposed. Moscow’s message was clear: There would be no deviation. Until 1989, the country’s neck would stay under the Russian boot.

For those few months of 1968, however, the Prague spring air was filled with hope. Director-writer Jiří Mádl brings this time to compelling life in Waves, the Czech Oscar entry that follows the fervently committed team at Czechoslovak Radio. This hardscrabble bunch of journalists and technicians is right at the coalface of the struggle against censorship.

When “Waves” director and writer Jiří Mádl first came across the history of Czechoslovakian radio while studying journalism in college, he discovered something that didn’t add up.

“I knew what happened in ‘68 and I knew that the radio had a very important role in those days,” Mádl said. “I knew that the [Soviet] troops came and they cut off the building … But I never saw the contradiction that the radio building was cut off. So how did the [journalists] actually manage to broadcast?”

That gap on the timeline, as Mádl puts it, was the impetus for years of research through archives, books and materials about the group of journalists from the International News Office of Czechoslovak Radio. The subject of “Waves,” Czech Republic’s official entry for the 2025 Academy Awards, is the broadcast that changed the world and the journalists who risked their lives in the process.

Vojtech Vodochodský stars as...

Welcome to Global Breakouts, Deadline’s fortnightly strand in which we shine a spotlight on the TV shows and films killing it in their local territories. The industry is as globalized as it’s ever been, but breakout hits are appearing in pockets of the world all the time and it can be hard to keep track… So, we’re going to do the hard work for you.

This week we’re featuring Jiří Mádl’s International Feature Oscar entry from the Czech Republic, Waves. Winner of the Karlovy Vary Audience Award, the film has set the local box office alight with over $6.9 million at home and in neighboring Slovakia. In Czech Republic, it is the top local title of the year, the third-biggest ever and sits at 11th position among all films since 1991.

Name: Waves

Country: Czech Republic (Slovakia co-production)

Producers: Dawson Films, Wandal Production

Distributor: Bontonfilm

Sales Agent:...

1968 marked not only a memorable moment in American political history, but sparked protests in many countries around the world. A recent breakout hit in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, writer-director Jiří Mádl’s political thriller “Waves” won the audience award at July’s Karlovy Vary Film Festival and was submitted by the Czech Republic for Oscar consideration. (Our Best International Feature Film predictions are here.)

The hybrid feature, which deploys an artful mix of live-action drama and restored archive footage, takes place during the Prague Spring in 1968, when Warsaw Pact troops and tanks rolled into the city. Citizens were able to resist the U.S.S.R. occupation for eight months partly due to Czechoslovak Radio’s continuous broadcasts.

Based on true stories and interviews with witnesses from the period, Mádl’s movie focuses on the courageous journalists who fought against censorship at the radio station. “Waves” brings a timely...

Historical dramas — in particular those centered on fearless feats of resistance against authoritarian regimes — often seek to be warnings. The oft-quoted Winston Churchill line — “Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it” — may ring simply too facile. Yet in watching a film like Jiří Mádl’s handsomely mounted period drama “Waves,” one cannot help but see in its story, and in the history it’s retelling, an urgent plea about the pressing need for a free press. But within its thriller-like trappings is also a complicated meditation on how such a demand rests on the shoulders of men and women who are human, and therefore fallible.

“Waves” opens with an unequivocal historical truth: “The Soviet Union keeps Eastern European countries under its control,” a voice informs viewers as images of Joseph Stalin, the U.S.S.R. and the aforementioned countries and peoples (including those of...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

Entries for the 2025 Oscar for best international feature are underway, and Screen is profiling each one on this page.

The 97th Academy Awards is set to take place on March 3, 2025 at the Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles.

An international feature film is defined as a feature-length motion picture (over 40 minutes) produced outside the US with a predominantly (more than 50%) non-English dialogue track and can include animated and documentary features.

Submitted films must have been released theatrically in their respective countries between November 1, 2023, and September 30, 2024. The deadline for submissions to the Academy is October 2.

A shortlist of 15 finalists is scheduled to...

The Jirí Mádl-directed movie Waves, a new take on the time before and after the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Soviet Union-led Warsaw Pact troops, is the Czech Republic’s submission for the best international feature race at the 2025 Oscars.

The film, which had its world premiere at the 58th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff) where it won the audience award, was unveiled as the official Czech contender on Tuesday.

“The film revolves around the international news office at Czechoslovak Radio, a place full of talented individuals possessing broad insight, linguistic skills and above all a commitment to honest journalistic work with a focus on the truth,” whose broadcasts played a key role during the Soviet invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, according to a synopsis. “An epic, dynamically shot, rewarding film, which embraces uncommon heroism in the face of an oppressive regime, the strength...

The period around 1968 in what was then known as Czechoslovakia has gotten the film and TV treatment numerous times. But the 58th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (Kviff) saw the world premiere of Waves, a new take on the time before and after the invasion of Czechoslovakia by Soviet Union-led Warsaw Pact troops.

“The film revolves around the international news office at Czechoslovak Radio, a place full of talented individuals possessing broad insight, linguistic skills and above all a commitment to honest journalistic work with a focus on the truth,” whose broadcasts played a key role during the Soviet invasion and occupation of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, the Kviff website highlights. “An epic, dynamically shot, rewarding film, which embraces uncommon heroism in the face of an oppressive regime, the strength of fraternal ties and the eternal themes of love, betrayal, morality and hope.”

Director and actor Jirí Mádl directed the ensemble cast,...

Director Marek Partyš’ music video for Island Mint’s Burnout is a zippy, playful and incredibly creative scrapbook-style look at a couple on the run at the end of the world. What’s interesting is how Partyš uses the doomsday device as fuel for the couple’s romance, a method for their passion to enflame rather than quell. Also, the contrast of burgeoning love with apocalyptic doom brings with it a great opportunity for Partyš to generate a whole assortment of images filled with quirky exuberance, an ideal match for Island Mint’s song which melds the psychedelia of Tame Impala and The Flaming Lips with bouncy pop rhythms. Dn caught up with Partyš to learn more about his creative process, the extensive planning that went into creating the scrappy, collage-like look of the music video, and the solitary experience he had in post-production animating the project himself.

What spurred...

The 27th edition of the Fantasia International Film Festival is set to commence from July 20 through August 9, 2023, and this year’s Frontières Market lineup has been announced.

The genre-themed line up has been revealed by Variety this afternoon, and it includes films about everything from Krampus to pregnancy, deadly novels, and a blood transfusion app.

Here’s the full Fantasia 2023 Frontières Market lineup…

Official Selection: Market Projects

“Alice”

The Netherlands

Director: Jan Verdijk

Genre: Psychological Horror

Vincent van der Valk stars in this horror, now in pre-production, about parents who, faced with their unborn daughter’s dire complications, turn to a mysterious midwife. What begins as harmless alternative therapies soon descends into life-threatening rituals. “It delves into the profound desires and fears of every aspiring parent,” says producer Daniel Dow of Dpplr. “It is a deeply personal narrative for the filmmakers, inspired by their own challenging journeys towards parenthood. The...