“This film notes that the history reapeats itself. The message for humanity is to make a move for breaking out of this vicious circle of repetitions. Now is the time, break out or lose“, producer Rasa Miškinyte told FNE.
Trains is a deeply personal and contemplative journey through the 20th century, composed entirely of archival film footage from 46 archives around the world. In this wordless film, full of beauty and bitterness, the excitement of adventure becomes a curse, and tears of joy mingle with the pain of despair.
"One of the most significant and time-consuming challenges was finding a common thread to unify sequences to be edited from materials created in different eras and technologies. This film harnesses the vast potential of cinematic language to forge an emotional connection between the viewer and the archival reality", Maciej Drygas said in a statement.
The film was produced by Vita Zelakeviciute through Polish Drygas Film Production and coproduced by Rasa Miškinyte through Lithuanian Era Film, and Andrzej Łucjanek and Łukasz Ceranka through Fixa Film. It was supported by the Polish Film Institute, the Polish Television, and the Lithuanian Film Center in collaboration with Eye Filmmuseum from the Netherlands. The total budget was 688, 173 EUR.
Maciej J. Drygas is a renowned film and radio director, screenwriter, producer, and professor at the Polish National Film School in Łódź. His works have received numerous prestigious awards, including the European Film Academy Award for Best Documentary for Hear My Cry (1991), the Prix Italia for the radio documentary Last Will (1992), the Grand Prix at the Monte Carlo International Television Festival for State of Weightlessness (1995), and the award for Best Feature-Length Documentary at the Cinema Verité festival in Tehran for Abu Haraz (2013). Drygas is also the founder of Filmoteka Narodowa at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Warsaw.
Trains received the Best Film Award and Best Editing (for Rafał Listopad) at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) in 2024, and it screened later in the Doc@PÖFF section of the Black Nights Film Festival, followed by Trieste Film Festival and Goteborg Film Festival.
Production Information:
Producer:
Drygas Film Production (Poland)
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Coproducers:
Era Film (Lithuania)
Fixa Film (Poland)
Credits:
Director: Maciej Drygas
Scriptwriter: Maciej Drygas
Editor: Rafał Listopad
Sound designer: Saulius Urbanavicius
