Reisverhalen - De trein naar Grozny

On 25 March 2000, the day when Putin was elected President of Russia, documentary maker Leo de Boer and interviewer Masha Novikova boarded a train in Moscow for the Caucasus, heading for Chechnya. In a travelogue, they recorded with two small DV cameras their encounter with Caucasian and Russian travellers who heatedly discuss the sense and purpose of the Chechen war. When the train stops, the filmmakers reach a totally devastated Grozny by taxi, bus, helicopter and tank. There they are met by the hatred and fury of the local people about what the Russians have done to them. The Train to Grozny is a forerunner to a series of documentaries in which filmmakers take a simple DV camera on train journeys through areas where the life of the locals is put to the test.