Trains

A stunning, multiple-award-winning archival portrait of the human moments behind the highs and lows of the 20th century, via its defining mode of transportation. Trains take families to the seaside, soldiers to the front, prisoners to their doom; they bring loved ones, and bodies, home. Assembled over the course of a decade from footage excavated from almost 100 different film archives from all over the world, and featuring neither commentary nor dialogue save for occasional diegetic snatches of conversation, this unconventional documentary crafts a story of humanity in the 20th century as it emerged across tracks, carriages and crossings. As director Maciej J. Drygas (Hear My Cry, MIFF 1992) puts it, “Travelling by train is a metaphor for life.” Winning Best Film and Best Editing (awarded to Rafał Listopad) at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, Drygas’s archival epic weaves a seamless narrative around repeated motifs of joy and devastation, peace and war. The images harmonise and contrast with one another as Saulius Urbanavicius’s magnificently atmospheric sound design – built around Paweł Szymański’s composition Compartment 2, Car 7 – ties it all together. Far more than just a historical record of locomotion and what is symbolises, Trains is a story of people’s hopes, dreams and tragedies as they hurtle towards destinations unknown. “Riveting … a timeless, thought-provoking work of great formal beauty.” – Screen Daily