Train Dreams

Dream trains is an exploration of the dreams and nightmares of train commuters from cities around the world at a time of great political upheaval. 

Synopsis 

Filmed over seven years, this mini series travels around world capitals, from Washington DC to Athens, Paris and most recently Kiyv. The creators of this documentary 6 ep series have been asking train passengers one simple question:

"What do you dream about in your sleep?"

Through the delicate and revealing language of dreams, everyday citizens open up and share their deeply personal feelings about the state of the world and how they see themselves in it. 

Most recently multi award filmmaker Ross Domoney has been filming on trains across Ukraine (March 2022) as the war broke out. He managed to capture the dreams of Ukrainians on the move days before Russia decided to bomb train lines.

The cities featured in ‘Dream trains’ are at crossroads: Paris, the liberal metropolitan capital, watched with anguish as Le Pen nearly clinged to victory. Kiyv, the lively Ukrainian capital, locked in and locked up by the military in the face of the Russian onslaught. And buzzing capitals  like London that fell silent as the Covid pandemic kicked in, physically gutting their trains while filling up the dreams of their commuters: dreams of a life that no longer exists.

Inspired by the tones of Marc Issac’s short film ‘Lift’, the filming for this series has taken place deep underground, in gritty spaces that we normally pass through without attention. 

In this series the labyrinths of the underground have been transformed from public spaces of cold transit into intimate private terrain, where the symbolic language of dreams allows commuters to share their wildest fears and fantasies.

Animation could further bring these dreams to life, they could play over the window as the Dream Trains move between locations. Much like ‘Flee’, these animations could enhance the feeling of memory.

The mesmerising result of this compilation of dreams is an extravagant stream of scenarios: quests and dark thoughts told by workers, aristocrats and eccentrics alike - dreams that illustrate, in the most poetic and yet grounded of ways, what it is like to live in these cities in turmoil.

In Kyiv, Ukraine (filmed 2018) , a battle-hardened man who recently returned from war in the east shares a dream of his mother standing over his coffin. Back then, the soldiers thought they were the only ones whose dreams were traumatised by war. Now, four years on, almost of all of country's sub-conscious is affected by the total war disseminating their country.

In Catalonia, amongst the political crisis of independence a young girl describes her dream:

“I dream I’m taking an elevator, and I’m going to a certain floor, and the moment that floor arrives, it doesn’t exist. And it goes to the next floor, and it keeps on going up…because the floor I’m trying to get to isn’t there.”

Scenes of political spectacle often spill over into the station passages too: in Washington DC, at the time of Donald Trump's inauguration, carriages full of his supporters ride the metro en route to the White House, amongst racial tension.

In Lviv, Ukraine (2022) thousands run for cover in the train passageways as the bomb sirens sound.

 The series will serve as a mental map of cities in troubled times, linked together by the anxious commuters riding their train systems. Much like veins in a body, these transit lines and the carriages that traverse them will take the audience on an unforgettable journey, painting an allegoric picture of our world in a time of uncertainty.

The carriages and metro passages underground have been transformed into mind-bending visual spaces that have a sci-fi quality to them, allowing the audience to reflect on the cinematic language of dreams

Dream Trains is an outlandish portrait of our world in the era of uncertainty

Format; 

Train Dreams is a series compiled of six; 12-15 minute episodes. 

90% of this series filming has been completed. 

We are also open to this film being a one off 30-40 minute film, where the footage is held together as one film by a script with a recorded VO that links the sections together.

Treatment

Episodic outline for series. 

EP1 Survival

This introductory episode of the series is a compilation of dreams that citizens from a range of different cultures, in various cities across the world share on camera. Opening with the theme of ’Survival’, It establishes the various political crises going on in the cities at the time the footage is shot. Citizens of these troubled cities, tell their dreams of themselves as heroes fighting for independence against oppressive and dark forces. We hear the heroic dreams of Ukrainians in the face of imagined and real darkness as the war grinds on. The episode then moves onto London at the time of the COVID-19 Pandemic. The few passengers that dare to ride the tube trains talk about how Covid infiltrated their dreams. Their dreams are epic tales of survival,  over-coming the fear the of an invisible death which gripped the capital at the time. This first episode based on epic dreams of survival is used to establish the world of ‘Dream Trains’ and hook the viewer on a format of what is to come in the rest of the series. 
 

EP2 Fear 

This episode explores the dreams of ‘fear’ in our times of political conflict. We open with the evacuation trains arriving at Lviv train station in Ukraine (2022). The passengers, escaping their cities under siege open up about their collective dreams of a metaphorical darkness falling over the country leading up to the start of the war. These fearful dreams, are shared by many as the Russian troops menacingly grew on the countries borders. Once we set the tone for this flow of fearful dreams, the episode rides a train that cuts between cities in times of crisis. Departing Kyiv, and arriving in Washington DC at the distant but seemingly timeless era of Donald Trump (his inauguration in 2017), we hear citizens on the rapid transit train system express their subconscious in this time of populist conflict. Nightmares of white supremacy intercut with the cries of ‘fascists’ that the fleeing citizens of  Mariupol (Ukraine) tell us, as they hold the few precious belongings they were able to bring with them as they fled. ‘Fear’ also comes out in the form of arguments on the US trains, as a republican couple argue with a Mexican migrant claiming he doesn’t have the right to the American Dream. There is also dreams from the elderly in London at the time of Brexit, a fearful feeling of the future not living up to their nostalgia for the past. 

Exhausted train drivers evacuate Ukrainian civilians from cities under siege 2022.

EP3 Love

Opening with the metro system of Paris at the time of the far right Le Penn’s near victory in France. Here immigrants of the suburbs open up about their dreams of love. A global feeling of vulnerability, told through broken or naive hearts. In these dreams we hear stories of words we wished to say to our parents before they passed away. Or of the girl who vanished from our lives…the one who we never got to say the way we really felt too. The train cuts back to Ukraine, but this time in 2018 in Kyiv. The metro stations are bustling with people in times of peace. An escalator takes soldiers up towards an unknown fate, as they head off to fight in the war in the east. The soldiers talk about their dreams of love, and missing loved ones. Whilst also expressing that they feel forgotten by society for their sacrifice. This love tainted premonition is in stark contrast to today, where the whole country is at war. In New York City at the time of Trumps inauguration a girl smiles with a tear as she talks about how she saw her grandmother in her dream. She tells us the love she had for her, is unmatchable to anything in her life. This uplifting episode taps into the uncertainty of love in our times of global uncertainty. 

EP4 Fantasy 

In London, an elderly lady talks about a field full of roses.  Prosperity she says.  A simple life, without the complications of technology. To her, and her recent vote in favour of Brexit; this dream expresses her nostalgia for ‘the old days’. An empire perhaps, but it’s not certain. This episode and it’s exploration of fantasy, touches on the political promises of ‘dreaming for a better world’ sold to citizens by corrupt populist politicians. In DC, at the time of Trump a lady talks about her teeth falling out, a sign she says of the past rotting away. She says the light of a new era of governance is about to take over the world. Back in Ukraine (2022) amongst the sound of air raid sirens many citizens open up about dreams of fantasy worlds created by their sub conscious. An escapism from their reality as men are separated from their families, as part of military conscription law. In Paris, a man talks about his family turning into animals. Meanwhile an immigrant plays violin to the busy commuter train and gives a speech thanking them for their vote. Le Penn loosing the election is un-negotiable for him. 

EP5 Power

The grande Metro systems of Moscow fill the screen for the beginning of this episode. Proud Russians talk about the power they feel in their dreams, at the time of a new cold war era and global exclusion through sanctions (2022). However dissident Russian voices trickle into this episode and criticise Putin’s war on Ukraine. This language is not direct, but masked through the world of dreams. Watchful eyes fill the metro carriage at this time of East/West divide. Back in Ukraine in 2018, a solider is on a train as snow flakes past the window. He talks about his war dream. His initial excitement for power, the feeling of deciding your countries future through the language of the gun, has sunk into a wary bitterness. After 3 years on the eastern front his broken dream blurts out as;  ‘the reality of war is blood, mud, shit and tears’. 

In Barcelona at the time of the failed vote for Catalonian independence a women talks about the power she felt whilst placing her vote. The flags of independence are carried by demonstrators on the metro train as they head to a protest. Another citizen in Barcelona talks about the power of climbing to the top of a mountain in her dream. 

EP6 Courage and Heroism 

For the final episode of our series we will focus on the dreams of heroes. Their dreams are a protest to their realities. Feeling powerless in the face of political demons instigating military invasions, building walls and stirring up hate; in this episode the subconscious resists. The many different cultures in London express their colourful dreams of resistance to the Brexit project. Ukrainians heading from Lviv to Kyiv in the war, tell us how their heroic dreams have bought them back to their cities under-siege to resist. We hear the dreams of Russians resisting Putin’s imperialist dream of conquer in Moscow. What is the commonality that our subconscious shares in this time of populist rupture and war in and beyond Europe and North America? What does it feel like to live in this time of upheaval, and how does this upheaval transpire and enter our dream subconscious? What kind of alternative reading of this tense reality can the viewer take away from our series?

Visual Style

This will be a fly off the wall documentary that is shot intimately with the multitude of characters who are opening up and sharing their dreams and insecurities to us. It will be homage to a great variety of people and memorable faces. We want to show the different cultures, genders and ages of people in the cities we have chosen to visit at these melting moments of crisis. This film will be shot on trains, train stations, metro systems as well as underground platforms. In the trains, we will use a lot of close ups; partially to allow us to capture good sound, and secondly to be able to form an intimacy with our chosen characters. 

The sequences that express the dreams will be equally as important and metaphorical. They will visually support the stories which the dreams are telling and give the audience space to think and breath. Slow motion cameras have been used to capture some of these sequences.  We will use a tripod to capture the diverse, brutal and beautiful architecture of  train and metro stations. This will vary from the huge dystopian tunnels of the Metro system in Washington DC, to London's intimately crammed tube trains, all the way to the brutalist soviet structures of the Ukrainian metro stations in Kyiv.  

Sound

We have a wonderful  composer who has scored our trailer for us. Marina Kull works with real instruments to match the chaotic world of train station sound-scapes. Her work harmonises these sounds and takes us further into the surrealist dream world. We also have a talented sound mixer on board, Adam Libbettor, whose job is equally important as a big part of this series’s storytelling comes from the soundscape. 

Audience

We see Dream Trains as appealing to anyone who is interested in the political state of the Western world today, and how this shapes the psyche of everyday people. We feel our series would gather a large global  interest as we have filmed in Ukraine both before and amongst the war. We are also using a different language (dreams) to examine the feeling of uncertainty and change currently reverberating through our political landscape. This series could appeal to young and old people alike. Since the pandemic, there has also been a renewed interest in the dream world as populations try to rediscover which kind of world they would like to live in. Many of us dreamt big when we were left to ourselves and our thoughts, locked down whilst the world changed around us. 

The Director and Producer

Ross Domoney is a multi award winning freelance film-maker from the UK. His documentary work focuses on social/human rights issues, urban geography, character lead narratives and the affect of political protest on cities, authorities, and underground political and cultural movements. Ross studied documentary film making at the National Film and Television School. His work has been published in the Guardian, Al Jazeera, The Wall Street Journal, Discovery Channel and has been recognized by the BBC. 

The Co-Director and producer

Antonis Vradis is a geographer at St Andrews University who thoroughly enjoys venturing into the visual/arts realm. He is also a producer on the Metro Dreams project.

Contact the Director Ross Domoney for more details

photographyross@mac.com