''We Are the Wave'' (German 'Wir sind die Welle') is a German
coming-of-age
Coming of age is a young person's transition from being a child to being an adult. The specific age at which this transition takes place varies between societies, as does the nature of the change. It can be a simple legal convention or can ...
drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...
web series
A web series (also known as a web show) is a series of scripted or non-scripted online videos, generally in episodic form, released on the Internet, which first emerged in the late 1990s and became more prominent in the early 2000s. A single in ...
that is loosely based on the 1981 novel ''
The Wave'' by
Todd Strasser.
The series premiered on
Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fi ...
on 1 November 2019.
Synopsis
The series takes place in the fictitious German city of Meppersfeld. It tells the story of a group of teenagers who decide to fight together against injustice and social problems.
Lea, a high school student from a wealthy family, is bored and frustrated by her privileged life. She doubts her parents' way of life, who consider themselves to be cosmopolitan and environmentally aware. Lea feels that she wants to do more than them in order to create a better world. When Tristan, a new classmate, comes to Meppersfeld and quickly makes friends with the outsiders Zazie, Rahim and Hagen, Lea's interest is aroused.
Tristan uses the personal circumstances of the very different teenagers in order to inspire them for a common fight against grievances and injustices. Rahim and his family, for example, are regularly attacked racially. In addition, his family is threatened with the loss of their apartment because an investor wants to renovate the building into expensive luxury apartments. Hagen's parents who are organic farmers lost their economic livelihood after waste sludge from a local paper mill contaminated their fields. Zazie is bullied by classmates and feels oppressed by sexist gender stereotypes she doesn't match. After a short hesitation, Lea also joins the group, which meets in the afternoon on an abandoned factory site to plan the next steps together.
Driven by Tristan, the actions of the group, which is soon to be called "The Wave", are becoming increasingly radical and risky. What begins as an idealistic and playful revolt against the establishment, soon gets a threatening momentum. Central is the conflict between Lea, who believes in peaceful forms of protest and resistance, and Tristan, who considers Lea's optimism naive and is vehemently opposed to opening the group to other members.
As the story progresses, it becomes clear that Tristan has personal motives for his radicalism and is planning a terrorist action against a major gun manufacturer (his mother was killed in an aid mission in Africa by soldiers who came into possession of German weapons through illegal arms exports). In the showdown, Lea can prevent Tristan's attack in the last moment. With a media-effective action, Lea manages to inflict great economic damage on the weapons manufacturer, who has violated numerous legal requirements.
Cast and characters
Main
* Ludwig Simon as Tristan Broch, the new boy at school with a troubled past, leader of The Wave and Lea's love interest
* Luise Befort as Lea Herst, a wealthy girl who is fed up of her life, member of The Wave and Tristan's love interest
* Michelle Barthel as Zazie Elsner, a student who is constantly bullied, member of The Wave, Hagen's love interest, has a crush on Tristan and was once bullied by Lea
* Daniel Friedl as Hagen Lemmart, an antisocial boy, member of the Wave and has a crush on Zazie
* Mohamed Issa as Rahim Hadad, an Arab who is bullied because of his race; member of The Wave, and Paula's love interest
Recurring
* Milena Tscharntke as Sophie, Lea's best friend
*
Leon Seidel
Leon Seidel (born November 22, 1996) is a German actor. He is known for playing the role of "Huckleberry Finn" in the German film of 2011 .
Life and career
Seidel was born in Cologne. His talent for acting, says Seidel, he had inherited from h ...
as Rahim's bully
* Bela Lenz as Rahim's bully
* Robert Schupp
*
Stephan Grossmann
Stephan Grossmann (born 2 September 1971) is a German actor. He appeared in more than one hundred films since 1992.
Selected filmography
References
External links
*
1971 births
Living people
Actors from Dresden
German male film ac ...
* Kristin Hunold as Kim, Zazie's bully
* Sarah Mahita as Paula, Rahim's love interest
* Luis Pintsch
* Bianca Hein as Rike Herst, Lea's mother
* Christian Erdmann as Andreas Herst, Lea's father
* Jascha Baum as Luis
* Nicole Johannhanwahr as Hagen's mother
*
Stefan Lampadius
Stefan Lampadius (born November 17, 1976) is a German actor and filmmaker.
Biography
Stefan Lampadius was born in Aurich in 1976 and grew up in Emden. One of his first film works was live video footage of the English post-punk band And Also The ...
as Teacher Fleisser
* Livia Matthes as Nikki, Tristan's old friend
* Daniel Faust as drug dealer
* Leander Paul Gerdes
* Manuel Klein as Giese
Episodes
Production
On April 18, 2018, Netflix announced the series as part of its event ''See What's Next'' in Rome, which at that time still bore the working title ''The Wave''.
The shooting of the first season lasted from 11 February 2019 to 6 May 2019, and took place in several cities in
North Rhine-Westphalia
North Rhine-Westphalia (german: Nordrhein-Westfalen, ; li, Noordrien-Wesfale ; nds, Noordrhien-Westfalen; ksh, Noodrhing-Wäßßfaale), commonly shortened to NRW (), is a state (''Land'') in Western Germany. With more than 18 million inha ...
, including
Cologne
Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...
,
Hürth
Hürth is a town in the Rhein-Erft-Kreis, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. Hürth shares borders with the city of Cologne and is about 6 km to the southwest of Cologne city centre, at the northeastern slope of the natural preserve Kott ...
,
Leverkusen
Leverkusen () is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, on the eastern bank of the Rhine. To the south, Leverkusen borders the city of Cologne, and to the north the state capital, Düsseldorf.
With about 161,000 inhabitants, Leverkusen is o ...
,
Düren,
Euskirchen
Euskirchen (; Ripuarian: ''Öskerche'') is a town in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, capital of the district Euskirchen. While Euskirchen resembles a modern shopping town, it also has a history dating back over 700 years, having been granted to ...
,
Neuss
Neuss (; spelled ''Neuß'' until 1968; li, Nüss ; la, Novaesium) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located on the west bank of the Rhine opposite Düsseldorf. Neuss is the largest city within the Rhein-Kreis Neuss district. It ...
,
Wuppertal
Wuppertal (; "''Wupper Dale''") is, with a population of approximately 355,000, the seventh-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia as well as the 17th-largest city of Germany. It was founded in 1929 by the merger of the cities and tow ...
,
Solingen
Solingen (; li, Solich) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is located some 25 km east of Düsseldorf along the northern edge of the region called Bergisches Land, south of the Ruhr area, and, with a 2009 population of 161,366 ...
,
Gelsenkirchen-Ückendorf & Hassel,
Remagen
Remagen ( ) is a town in Germany in the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, in the district of Ahrweiler. It is about a one-hour drive from Cologne, just south of Bonn, the former West German capital. It is situated on the left (western) bank of the ...
and
Bonn
The federal city of Bonn ( lat, Bonna) is a city on the banks of the Rhine in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a population of over 300,000. About south-southeast of Cologne, Bonn is in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ru ...
.
The series is produced by
Rat Pack Filmproduktion in collaboration with Sony Pictures Film und Fernseh Produktion. The scripts are by Ipek Zübert, Kai Hafemeister and Thorsten Wettcke under the head-authorship of
Jan Berger. The series is directed by
Anca Miruna Lăzărescu and Mark Monheim. Executive Producer is
Dennis Gansel
Dennis Gansel (born 4 October 1973) is a German film director, writer and actor .
Life and career
Gansel was born in 1973 in Hannover, West Germany, where he graduated from high school in 1993. Gansel worked in the festivals for film and televi ...
.
References
Further reading
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External links
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Production information
{{DEFAULTSORT:We Are the Wave
Serial drama television series
2019 German television series debuts
German drama television series
German-language television shows
Netflix original programming
Television series about teenagers