TRAIN OF SHADOWS

In 1930 lawyer Gérald Fleury disappears during his holiday. He and his family spend the summers at the lake of Thuit, a small village in Normandie. They stay at the Thuit castle. Gérald made several family-films during their holidays, most of them in the ever sunny garden of the castle. The film he wanted to make before his disappearance was set at the lake. He went searching for the best spot and the best light and never returned. Until today no-one knows in which circumstances the lawyer vanished.
Ths mysterious fait divers inspired Spanish director José Luis Guerin (Los motivos de Berta, City Life) for a reflection about film. With the restored family-films of Gérald Fleury, Guerin makes a link between present and the nostalgia of the past. He mixes the films with documentary flashes of today’s Thuit and fictive, acted reconstructions of the summers of the Fleury family. The lake, the castle and the garden didn’t change in all those years. At sunset light falls through the curtains, and reflects the shape of Gérald Fleury on the castle’s clock. Tren de Sombras is an intriguing work about past and present, illusion and reality, time and images.. Tren de Sombras won the Golden Méliès 1997.