Passport

A train journey turns into a dystopian odyssey of impenetrable bureaucracy.

This surreal short film begins at London’s Waterloo station but takes its unwitting traveller, played by Hammer star Sandor Elès, on a nightmarish trip into an urban wasteland. Losing his passport on the train, he finds himself without an identity and ignored by blank-faced soldiers. This parable of the dehumanising power of Communism was written and directed by Polish Jewish artist Mira Hamermesh. She managed to eke out the tiny budget given to her by the BFI by recreating Eastern Europe in a derelict goods yard at Marylebone Station and recruiting locals to appear. Hamermesh went on to make award-winning television documentaries and this film is a fascinating example of her early fiction filmmaking.