The film was directed by Tom Roberts, and stars Thomas Kretschmann, Daniel Brühl, Vera Farmiga, and John Malkovich.

In the winter of 1946, in Leningrad, a group of German prisoners of war are sent to a female transit camp by the cruel Russian Colonel Pavlov (John Malkovich).

Natalia has an agreement with Colonel Pavlov to keep her former lover, who was wounded on the head during the war, in the camp instead of sending him to an institution in Siberia.

Natalia convinces the businessman Yakov (John Lynch) to organise an orchestra with the prisoners; they are invited to a ball, where the lonely women who survived the war get to dance with the Germans.

[2] In Transit was directed by Tom Roberts, from a screenplay written by Natalia Portnova and Simon van der Borgh.

"[5] By way of contrast, another critic, Don Groves, saw the film as "almost totally devoid of tension, marred by slack pacing, thinly developed characters and banal dialogue.