Trains

Winner! Best documentary, International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam

Winner! Best documentary, Polish Film Awards

OTHER FESTIVALS:  Thessaloniki

Drygas opens with a Franz Kafka quote: “There is plenty of hope. An infinite amount of hope. But not for us.” It’s a fitting warning for what is about to follow. Starting with men assembling a locomotive piece by piece, the train is then sent down the tracks to collect soldiers headed for the First World War. Back at the factories, women have taken over the assembly lines, building artillery that gets loaded onto train flatcars and hauled directly to the front. On the front, the trains swap out the weapons for the wounded. The pattern holds into the Second World War. As the war wages and countries are conquered and liberated, the same rail lines serve both sides – Allied and Axis alike, each running their own operations on the same tracks. Trains traces the world at its darkest hours and the role the railroad played in both its survival and liberation.

Directed by Maciej Drygas, 2024, No Dialogue, 81 minutes, NR