Trains

Trains take families to the seaside, soldiers to the front, prisoners to their doom; they bring loved ones — and bodies — home. Assembled over a decade from footage excavated from nearly one hundred film archives around the world, and featuring neither commentary nor dialogue, this unconventional documentary crafts a story of humanity in the twentieth century as it unfolds across tracks, carriages, and crossings. As director Maciej J. Drygas puts it: “Travelling by train is a metaphor for life.” Winner of Best Film at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), Drygas’s archival epic weaves a seamless narrative of joy and devastation, peace and war. Far more than a historical record of locomotion and what it symbolises, Trains is a portrait of people’s hopes, dreams, and tragedies as they hurtle toward destinations unknown.