What happens when an agency task at protecting the citizenry and ensuring that the duly constituted laws of the land are adhered to becomes the enforcer of human rights violations? This is the question posed by “When the Waves Are Gone”, the latest film by Filipino master Lav Diaz. The very current shocking Ukraine invasion by Russia and the resultant brutality seems unheard of but it is just a magnification of the human malady that has been with us forever—how humanity has become so accepting to a form of psychosis in approving evil leadership, how humanity has become so helpless to a wall of petrified ignorance. «Putin, Duterte, Assad, Trump... they’ve been with us forever, The Grim Reapers of the world», says the director in this extensive interview recorded during the 79th Venice Film Festival.