TRAINS
TRAINS is a powerful cinematic journey compiled from archival railway footage from around the world. Maciej Drygas' documentary captures hopes, desires, and the passage of time in a moving portrait of the 20th Century.
“Masterfully edited... Harnesses the magic of cinema and as an audience we are haunted by our present historical time, even while we bear witness to the past… The film confronts us with history both subtly and with exacting precision and without a single word of dialogue.”
– International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) Jury
“A timeless, thought-provoking work of great formal beauty… riveting – in both senses of the word.”
– Screen Daily
“As a metaphor for life, the upheavals of the 20th century, and our own journey — inner and outer — Maciej Drygas’ majestic and beautiful Trains is hard to beat.”
– Modern Times
“Trains is not just a technical achievement – a skillful and patient result of working with archives – but also a meditation on the moral weight and responsibility of images.”
– Cineuropa
“[Its] archival found footage defies the conventions of didactic voice over and, without a single spoken word, takes viewers on a fascinating journey.”
– Cinepur
"I have been working with archival materials for many years. I have spent hundreds of hours in the archives, looking through thousands of metres of film tape. I have always been fascinated by the activity of taking original materials and giving them a whole new meaning. How to use the huge possibilities of the language of film to build an emotional relationship between the viewer and the archived reality?”
- Maciej J.Drygas
BIOGRAPHIES
Director 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 also wrote the libretto for the opera “Qudsja Zaher”, which was nominated for the International Opera Awards in London in 2014. He is the originator and founder of the Home Movie Archive at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Warsaw. His films and radio documentaries have been broadcast across Europe, as well as in Canada, Japan, Brazil, South Africa, New Caledonia, and Australia.
Producer Vita Zelakeviciute is President of the Management Board at Drygas Film Production since 2017. Producer of notable films including Danger Zone (2023, dir. Vita Maria Dygas) and Trains (2024, dir. Maciej Drygas). With a background in directing award-winning documentaries, Želakevičiūtė brings a strong creative vision to her production work. She is also a long-time expert for the Polish Film Institute and a lecturer at the Wajda School in Warsaw.