SYNOPSIS:  

THE TRENCH is a short but intense tale of two enemy soldiers trapped in the brutal reality of the front line of world war II, who have to put their differences aside for a stretch of time.

CHARACTER DESCRIPTION:

OLEG ( 50 – played by Johnny Melville ) is a weather-beaten and brutish peasant from the Russian Steppes, called up under threat to serve in the Red Army. Uprooted from his home and family, he is instilled with a profound and blind resentment for both sides of the conflict.

HANS (19 – played by Ruslan Alov) is one of thousands of the young and inexperienced soldiers that the Werhmacht sent to die at the Russian front during the last years of the Russian conflict with little ammunition, in a time of extreme fear and suffering.

PLOT:

Russia, summer 1943, the Battle of Kursk, near the village Projorovka 640km southwest of Moscow.

OLEG and HANS, two enemy soldiers, a Russian and a German are thrown together by accident in a trench in no man’s land during the fierce German offensive at the Russian front in one of the largest battles of the Second World War.

Cut off from the world in an inferno of artillery bombardment, in fear and functioning on basic survival instinct, both are forced by events to co-exist together for an intense day and night where they rediscover their human side deep within. Little by little compassion, solidarity and hope flourish as they warily overcome their hate and the madness of war.
But nothing is as it seems, since caught on the edge of the battle what emerges is the secret and contradictory nature of the human being.

THE TRENCH  does not try to pass judgement or make apology nor does it try to revise history: it is also not an action movie. It is foremost a human tale of instinct and emotion in individuals in conflict which could indeed be just as easily shown in ourselves. This story invites us to reflect for a moment on those boundaries that separate and unify mankind that we all possess deep down inside us. It is also pays homage to those anonymous and faceless lost souls that try to win their wars with simple gestures of hope in the midst of barbarity.

THE TRENCH is a story of yearning amidst the blind mediocrity of war. For better or worse, the most compassionate and the most cruel moments can often incredibly walk hand in hand demonstrating the complexity of the human being. Like the great Spanish writer, academic and commentator Arturo Pérez Reverte on war said:

“Man has the potential to be the biggest son of a bitch.”  (Los ojos de la guerra)