Train of Life
Synopsis
One evening in 1941, the dwellers of a shtetl (Jewish village) in Eastern Europe see Schlomo the Idiot arrive with appalling news: the Germans are massacring the inhabitants of the nearby shtetls and deporting the survivors to an unknown destination. Soon the same fate will be theirs. That night, the village elders meet to discuss how to save their community. In the small hours of the morning, the answer comes from the mouth of Schlomo himself: to escape from the Nazis, they’ll run a fake deportation train! By playing the role of deportees, train engineers and Germans all at once, they will get through the German checkpoints and reach the Promised Land.
Credits
Director (1)
Actors (15)
Production and distribution (5)
- Executive Producers : Raphaël Films, Noé Productions Int.
- Co-production : STUDIOCANAL
- Foreign production companies : Hungry Eye Pictures, 7ïA
- Film exports/foreign sales : STUDIOCANAL
- French distribution : AB International Distribution
Full credits (20)
- Executive Producers : Frédérique Dumas, Ludi Boeken, Marc Baschet, Cedomir Kolar, Éric Dussart
- Screenwriter : Radu Mihaileanu
- Directors of Photography : Yorgos Arvanitis, Laurent Dailland
- Music Composer : Goran Bregovic
- Assistant directors : Olivier Jacquet, Cristian Mungiu
- Editor : Monique Rysselinck
- Sound Recordist : Pierre Excoffier
- Costume designer : Viorica Petrovici
- Assistant Operator : Patrick Dehalu
- Production Manager : Thierry Bettas-Bégalin
- Press Attachés (film) : Dominique Segall, Astrid Gavard
- Sound Editor : Eric De Vos
- Assistant Editor : Gert Janssen
- Continuity supervisor : Élodie Van Beuren
- Production Designer : Christian Niculescu
- Foley artist : Marie-Jeanne Wyckmans
- Casting : Pierre-Jacques Bénichou
- Sound Mixer : Dominique Dalmasso
- Still Photographers : Vincent Lebrun, Cornel Lazia
- Location manager : Marianne Lambert
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Media Gallery
Technical details
- Type : Feature film
- Genres : Fiction
- Sub-genre : War, Drama, Historical
- Production language : French
- Coproducer countries : France, The Netherlands, Belgium
- Original French-language productions : Yes
- Nationality : Majority French (France, The Netherlands, Belgium)
- Production year : 1998
- French release : 16/09/1998
- Runtime : 1 h 43 min
- Current status : Released
- Visa number : 88.700
- Visa issue date : 17/07/1998
- Approval : Yes
- Production formats : 35mm
- Color type : Color
- Aspect ratio : CinemaScope
Box-office & releases
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International releases
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News & awards
Selections (8)
Istanbul Film Festival
Turkey , 1999
From the World of Festivals
Melbourne French Film Festival
Australia, 1999
Films selected
About
I happened to be in Los Angeles when Spielberg’s ‘Schindler’s List’ came out. Seeing it, I felt two reactions: great emotion, and a strong conviction that the story of the Shoah couldn’t always go on being told in the same way, in the register of tears and horror. Back home in Paris, a historian friend got to talking over dinner about some Jews who escaped on a train during the war, an almost incredible story. He urged me to make a film about it, a somber story about my roots and people. ‘A comedy!’ I answered. He was taken aback. But I felt that the combination of comic and tragic would have an extraordinary effect. I had a hunch that this was the way I had to go. (Radu Mihaileanu)
