TV's long-form storytelling renaissance continues to expand our watching habits. This eight-hour series was backed by HBO in the Czech Republic, and comes on the heels of Agnieszka Holland's mini-series Burning Bush (PSIFF 2014). Incidently, both were created by Štěpán Hulík, winner of a prestigious Czech literary prize in 2011 with his nonfiction book Cinematography of Oblivion, a study of Czech film in the 1970s and '80s... It's important to recognize the cinematic imagination that animates these ambitious series: directed by Alice Nellis and Ivan Zachariás, Wasteland has a filmic scope and visual texture.

Set in an impoverished mining town in northern Bohemia, the drama hangs on an idealistic mayor's resistance to pressure from the mining industry that will effectively destroy the town, at least the way its citizens have always known it. When the mayor's daughter goes missing, some fear this might be payback from the company. But it would be wrong to jump to conclusions. As the search widens, the woods reveal all manner of unexpected secrets... Enthralling storytelling that reverberates on many levels, this is a series you will be pressing on your friends.