Concept:
Last Train to Kyiv follows the only international train connecting Bratislava and Kyiv — a journey that serves as both a literal route and a symbolic bridge between Slovakia and Ukraine. The “last train” is more than a means of travel; it is a metaphor for connection, belonging, and if you miss it - you may lose something irreplaceable.  Once a journey that required transfers, the Bratislava–Kyiv line now runs directly, symbolizing renewed connection. Along this route, the train becomes a lifeline — carrying not just passengers, but human stories of love, loss, hope, uncertainty and return. Through the journeys of six women and men, we explore how crossing borders — both physical and emotional — can reveal who we are and what we share.

Themes:
Identity and memory – departure, return, generational trauma.
Empathy and solidarity – passengers share tea, words, and stories.
The European dimension  the train as a political gesture, making Ukraine visible in Europe.

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Director’s Note:
As a child, I left Slovakia for the suburbs of New York. I entered a classroom where I could not yet speak the language. What was promised as a better life soon revealed itself as absence: absence of family, of familiar voices, of the taste and scent of home. Surrounded by material abundance, I discovered a deeper poverty – the loneliness of being unseen, misnamed, misunderstood.

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The immigrant condition is one of perpetual in-betweenness. I remember the sharpness of stares, the kindness of strangers that quickly turned to ridicule, the shifting of homes as my mother struggled with work and status. And yet, amid this dislocation, solidarity appeared from unexpected people – a Ukrainian family, a Russian family, an Iranian family. Fragments of a fragile mosaic of belonging.

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From them I learned that exile is not only about departure, but about return: the dream of going back, of reclaiming, of transforming what was lost into something shared. This authenticity allows me to enter the lives of the protagonists of this film.

Director: Michael Angelov 
Director of Photography: Rumen Vasilev 
Camera Operator: Michal Duriš 
Editor: Radoslav Dúbravský 
Music: Aditya Surya Taruna (Kasimyn)