The movie Tender Waves by popular Czech filmmaker Jiri Vejdelek appears to combine a hit-making formula of romantic comedy and nostalgia. The shy protagonist Vojta is torn between a choleric father who wants him to become a professional swimmer and a mother who sees him as a talented pianist.

Vojta seems to care about only one thing, his classmate Ela, a charming synchronized swimmer. The protagonist must do something or Ela will soon disappear behind an iron curtain. Tender Waves falls into the stream of Czech films contemplating and reflecting on events in 1989 in Czechoslovakia, a not so distant past - “times where life appeared to be hopeless yet still full of dreams and human joys.”

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