Over the past twenty years, director Rob Hof regularly shot documentaries in Eastern Europe. This time, he takes a train from St. Petersburg to Sarajevo, via countries such as Poland, former East Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Kosovo and Albania. In this rail movie, he films both the passengers and the scenery that glide by. En route, he pays a visit to people he spoke with and filmed earlier - ten, fifteen years ago; unknown people, like a shepherd in Albania, and well-known people like the former Polish leader Jaruzelski and the former head of the Stasi in Berlin. Hof shows the older footage in black-and-white, counterbalancing the more recent colour images. This produces a kaleidoscopic impression of a region in transition and of its inhabitants, some of whom are nostalgically or mournfully stuck in the past, while others have high hopes for the future.
