Search Film, Company, People...

RAILS RUN PARALLEL

Drama - Development 2023

1943 - Four prisoners escape from a prisoner-of-war camp in Poland and undertake a grueling trip to France via Germany in an empty wine barrel wagon, while being chased by a Nazi Sherlock Holmes.

Festivals
& Awards

Los Angeles Film Awards June 2021 2021

Screenplay of the month

Los Angeles Film Awards 2021

Best Drama Screenplay

Paris Play Film Festival 2021

Best Feature Script

Vegas Movie Awards 2021

Best Feature Script

Golden Harvest Film Festival 2021

Best Feature Screenplay

First Scene Screenplay Festival 2021

Best 1rst Scene Screenplay

TMFF – The Monthly Film Festival 2021

Winner 2nd

- Year of production
- 2023
- Genres
- Drama, Historical, True Story
- Countries
- FRANCE, POLAND, GERMANY
- Languages
- ENGLISH
- Budget
- 10 - 25 M$
- Duration
- 100 mn
- Synopsis
- Based on a true story
  
  In 1943, POW Louis Seguela receives a letter from home. The winemaker, formerly a model prisoner, makes an audacious escape from the Nazi camp in Bartenstein, Poland, not expecting the Germans to initiate a manhunt across a Europe at war. The manhunt is led by Standartenführer Franz Meyer – the man Reichsführer Himmler himself calls the Reich’s Bloodhound.
  Unbeknownst to Louis, the film reel his fellow escapees stole from the concentration camp holds vital information about a new jet engine. That information, along with smuggled photos of concentration camp victims, could severely affect the Nazi war effort if it falls into Allied hands.
  
  Louis and his fellow escapees – friend Leon, injured Henri and volatile gypsy giant Andre – face a claustrophobic, stifling, ten-day rail journey with little food or water before they once again reach non-occupied French territory. They’re ingeniously hidden in a cramped, wine-free, but fume-filled wine barrel wagon on a freight train. As the huge freight train rumbles relentlessly across war-torn Europe, they face German Army inspection teams, contend with RAF bombing, and have to deal with Henri’s bullet wound and Andre’s irascible nature. The men find themselves pushed to the limits of endurance. And all the time Meyer is getting closer. Time is running out, mile by mile.
  
  Standartenführer Meyer is himself a driven man. Obliged to do his duty, he is consumed with worry for his pregnant wife, who has recently contracted tuberculosis. Only the promise from his superior Oberführer Zimmermann of a specialised new treatment for her has taken him from his beloved’s side. British bomb damage to the tracks, incompetent staff, inadequate telephone connections and internal army rivalries have all facilitated the train’s continued progress. Even after having requisitioned a Messerschmitt, Meyer is not certain will be able to stop the train in time.
  
  For the men in the barrel wagon time is also running out. Henri’s wound has required an amputation, and an argument over a captured German soldier and lack of food and water has caused an unfixable rift. When the giant Andre finally snaps and sets upon Leon, neither Louis nor Henri can stop him bashing Leon’s head in – until Henri buries an axe in Andre’s back. Sadly, it is too late for Leon, and Louis promises the dying man that his wife will get his final letter.
  
  The surviving men arrive in France – only to find Meyer waiting for them! They are treated well in a local prison and Meyer admits to Louis that he too has a background in winemaking and is willing to do a deal. Both men will live, and Henri will get medical treatment, if Louis reveals where he has hidden the film reel. Meyer has read the letter from Louis’s fiancée that prompted Louis’s escape. It revealed that she too had been diagnosed with TB. Meyer realises that Louis’s escape was not prompted by an interest in smuggling out secret information or exposing the brutality of a corrupt regime. Louis, like all men worth their salt, is motivated by love – not beliefs or ideologies. Meyer confides in Louis. He explains that his wife also had TB, but that she has recovered and that both she and the baby are doing well, according to his superior Zimmermann.
  
  Louis takes the deal and Meyer recovers the film reel hidden on the outside of the wagon. However, on returning to the prison he finds that Louis and Henri are still to be shot – despite his having given his word. Meyer is furious but can’t get through to Himmler to reverse the decision. Instead, he receives a message about his wife’s ashes! His superiors have lied to him.
  
  As they face the firing squad, Louis and Henri have an unexpected reprieve. Meyer – despairing at his own side’s lack of scruples – fires at his own soldiers. On the run, the three men try to hop a train south but Henri dies saving Meyer’s life and Meyer is wounded. Louis makes the train to safety, but Meyer can’t. The two men – whose lives have unknowingly run in parallel – are parted again, but after the war a crate of wine arrives for Louis – from Meyer. He expresses the hope that they might meet up at a wine festival and share a glass or two of his new ‘Escapees of Bartenstein’ cuvée.

RAILS RUN PARALLEL

Festivals& Awards

Festivals
& Awards