COLD WAVES

Funded by the USA and based in Munich, Radio Free Europe broadcast information from the West to the East into the mid-1990s. In Romania, the listenership was particularly large during the reign of the Ceaușescu regime – the station's Romanian team became a sort of bogeyman for the dictator. Alexandru Solomon assembles a host of protagonists from that era: a former Securitate man with a seat in Romanian parliament today, Carlos the Jackal in prison, and listeners who recount how the programming gave them courage. Alas, some of the editors would not live to see the end of the dictatorship. The film feels disturbingly relevant today.