Opening with Franz Kafka’s quote, “There is hope, an infinite amount of hope... but not for us,”
Trains takes viewers on a journey through 20th-century film chronicles, revealing a collective
portrait of postwar Europe – its progress and its tragedies. Locomotives, at first symbols of
human engineering achievement, soon become terrifying machines of war. The faces of victims
and migrants evoke the eternal cycle of joy and destruction, while the camera, fixed on the
tracks, seems to ask: which path will humanity choose today? This silent film by Polish
documentary master and Łódź Film School professor Maciej Drygas, which will close
Scanorama, won the top prize at the prestigious IDFA in Amsterdam. The soundtrack
prominently features the voice of Lithuanian sound artist Saulius Urbonavičius. For the film‘s
creators, the train itself becomes a living being – absorbing, bearing witness to, and speaking of
countless human destinies.
Maciej J. Drygas
Maciej J. Drygas is a renowned Polish film and radio director, screenwriter, producer, and
professor at the National Film School in Łódź. His documentaries Hear My Cry (1991) and Abu
Haraz (2013) received prestigious awards from the European Film Academy, Monte Carlo, and
other international festivals. In 1990, Lithuanian director Raimundas Banionis adapted one of his
screenplays into The Children from the Hotel America, one of the most popular Lithuanian films
of its time. Drygas is also the founder of the film archive at the Museum of Modern Art in
Warsaw.
Opening with Franz Kafka’s quote, “There is hope, an infinite amount of hope... but not for us,”
Trains takes viewers on a journey through 20th-century film chronicles, revealing a collective
portrait of postwar Europe – its progress and its tragedies. Locomotives, at first symbols of
human engineering achievement, soon become terrifying machines of war. The faces of victims
and migrants evoke the eternal cycle of joy and destruction, while the camera, fixed on the
tracks, seems to ask: which path will humanity choose today? This silent film by Polish
documentary master and Łódź Film School professor Maciej Drygas, which will close
Scanorama, won the top prize at the prestigious IDFA in Amsterdam. The soundtrack
prominently features the voice of Lithuanian sound artist Saulius Urbonavičius. For the film‘s
creators, the train itself becomes a living being – absorbing, bearing witness to, and speaking of
countless human destinies.
Maciej J. Drygas
Maciej J. Drygas is a renowned Polish film and radio director, screenwriter, producer, and
professor at the National Film School in Łódź. His documentaries Hear My Cry (1991) and Abu
Haraz (2013) received prestigious awards from the European Film Academy, Monte Carlo, and
other international festivals. In 1990, Lithuanian director Raimundas Banionis adapted one of his
screenplays into The Children from the Hotel America, one of the most popular Lithuanian films
of its time. Drygas is also the founder of the film archive at the Museum of Modern Art in
Warsaw.
Trains takes viewers on a journey through 20th-century film chronicles, revealing a collective
portrait of postwar Europe – its progress and its tragedies. Locomotives, at first symbols of
human engineering achievement, soon become terrifying machines of war. The faces of victims
and migrants evoke the eternal cycle of joy and destruction, while the camera, fixed on the
tracks, seems to ask: which path will humanity choose today? This silent film by Polish
documentary master and Łódź Film School professor Maciej Drygas, which will close
Scanorama, won the top prize at the prestigious IDFA in Amsterdam. The soundtrack
prominently features the voice of Lithuanian sound artist Saulius Urbonavičius. For the film‘s
creators, the train itself becomes a living being – absorbing, bearing witness to, and speaking of
countless human destinies.
Maciej J. Drygas
Maciej J. Drygas is a renowned Polish film and radio director, screenwriter, producer, and
professor at the National Film School in Łódź. His documentaries Hear My Cry (1991) and Abu
Haraz (2013) received prestigious awards from the European Film Academy, Monte Carlo, and
other international festivals. In 1990, Lithuanian director Raimundas Banionis adapted one of his
screenplays into The Children from the Hotel America, one of the most popular Lithuanian films
of its time. Drygas is also the founder of the film archive at the Museum of Modern Art in
Warsaw.