Trail Baltic. A film about the land and the lives that lie in the railway’s path.

2023

Documentary

“The documentary film follows one woman’s journey along the future corridor of the Rail Baltic railway. Attempting to livestream her entire 213 km trek, artist Hanna Samoson encounters people whose lives will soon become inseparably linked to the new railroad. Through hope, humor, and the pain of loss, the film reveals how those affected by this grand project truly feel.

Against the backdrop of an unbroken landscape—destined, by all signs, to soon change—the story unfolds. This could just as easily be a story about the Nursipalu military training area, the wind farms of Saaremaa, the pulp mill by the Emajõgi river, or the planned nuclear power plant: in each case, great technological ambitions collide with the wish to preserve something deeply important to someone among us.

This is not a conventional documentary. It’s a road movie winding through Estonia’s undergrowth, ditches, bogs, and forest groves. The encounters with people along the way are spontaneous, candid, and sincere.

This film does not take sides for or against Rail Baltic. Instead, it presents a diversity of opinions, the process of adapting to change, and captures the lives and landscapes of Estonia in a fleeting moment of time.”

Directed by Marianne Kõrver

Watch the full movie in Estonian here, and in English here

Review: Eero Epner on Trail Baltic

(originally published in Postimees 07.11.2020)

Hanna Samoson’s journey along the Rail Baltic route can be seen as a ritual with the talk of disappearance at its heart. With her body, the artist marks a path in nature that still exists today, but may not in the future. By sloshing through the bush, a sense of purpose is given to places otherwise seen as of little significance, suddenly debris and litter gain greater meaning to us. It may happen that after Samoson’s journey we start to sympathize with these places that are unfamiliar to us, but it may also happen that we look at it all with indifference and see it all as an inevitable course of life – Samoson herself does not give assessments, but recedes to being the one who guides the ritual and introduces the route.The physical dimension of Samoson’s action must be emphasized. In the information age we don’t only make decisions, but we also replace physical experiences with mediated ones – we watch life on screens. What is important in this ritual is the exhaustion of the body due to days of constant moving, reminiscent of the journey genre of barefoot apostles per pedes apostolorum. The body is twisted, the mind sharpens, the feeling of human helplessness and smallness increases, humility arises in front of something greater. In front of what? Nature? Railway? Time? Space? Don’t know.