“TRAINS” BY MACIEJ J. DRYGAS CLAIMS TWO POLISH FILM ACADEMY AWARDS
At the Polish Film Awards (Eagles) ceremony, held on 9 March at Teatr Polski in Warsaw, the documentary "Trains", directed by Maciej J. Drygas, claimed two statuettes: for Best Documentary Film and for Best Editing. The editing award went to Rafał Listopad, who in recent days also won the second edition of the Polish Association of Editors' Award.
This year, five titles competed for the Eagle for Best Documentary: Child of Dust (dir. Weronika Mliczewska), The Guest (dir. Zuzanna Solakiewicz and Zvika Gregory Portnoy), Letters from Wolf Street (dir. Arjun Talwar), Silver (dir. Natalia Koniarz), and the victorious Trains. Moreover, Joaquin Garcia received a nomination in the Best Score category for Child of Dust, whilst Iga Lis was nominated for Discovery of the Year for her film The Queen and the Smokehouse.
Trains is an essayistic found footage films that creates a collective portrait of 20th-century Europe and its residents – along with their hopes, desires, dramas, and traumas. The film has screened at dozens of the world's most prestigious festivals. It was also recognised at IDFA in Amsterdam in 2024, where it received the Grand Prix as well as the award for editing. The film further earned the acclaim of FOCAL International, which honours filmmakers and institutions specialising in the creative use of archival materials.
The production has also enjoyed considerable success on the critical circuit: Trains received two nominations at the Critics Choice Documentary Awards – in the categories of Best Archival Documentary and Best Score, the latter nominating Paweł Szymański. It was the first Polish documentary in history to be nominated for this award. These nominations coincided with the film's theatrical distribution in the United States, conducted as part of a promotional campaign aimed at securing a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Feature-Length Documentary – the film was formally submitted for Oscar consideration.
The film is produced by Drygas Film Production.
The Polish Film Awards, known as the Eagles, have been awarded since 1999 by the Polish Film Academy and were originated by film director and producer Dariusz Jabłoński.
You can find the list of all awarded films here.