Bitter Harvest (2017)
  • Room 018, Rolle Building, University of Plymouth

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Bitter Harvest is a 2017 period romantic-drama film set in Soviet Ukraine in the early 1930s. The widely-acclaimed Canadian film is the first English language feature film depicting Ukraine's man-made famine, the 1932–33 Holodomor.
Holodomor (Ukrainian for 'extermination by hunger') is the international term for the massive man-made famine caused by Stalin's agricultural collectivisation across the USSR in 1930–34, onto which Stalin forced a brutal, indeed genocidal, even deeper famine on Ukraine between 1932–33. This caused the deaths of at least four million innocent Ukrainians (scholarly estimates vary).
In 1998, Ukraine's President decreed that the fourth Saturday in November would each year be a commemoration of this tragedy. It is recognised across the world, including by the United Nations and UNESCO. Saturday 23 November is International Holodomor Day.

Day of Remembrance of Victims of the Holodomor

In view of the current wars and starvation in Sudan, Gaza, Yemen and elsewhere, and genocidal deaths by bombing and freezing that Stalin's Tsarist successor Putin is now illegally forcing upon independent Ukraine, the University is commemorating the Holodomor, together with our intention to do whatever we can to work against the continuation or repetition of anything similar.
"Why is the Holodomor unique among genocides and great crimes against humanity? Because its last chapter has not yet been written." (Walter Zarycky, Columbia University)
This free film showing is open to all and everyone is welcome. Doors open at 15:45 for a 16:00 start. No booking is required with seating available on a first come, first serve basis. Email david.salter@plymouth.ac.uk for queries.
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About the film

Set in 1930s Ukraine, as Stalin advances the ambitions of communists in the Kremlin, young artist Yuri battles to save his lover Natalka from the Holodomor, the death-by-starvation programme that ultimately killed millions of Ukrainians. (Source: IMDb)
Director: George Mendeluk
Screenplay and story: Richard Bachynsky Hoover
Cast: Max Irons, Samantha Barks, Barry Pepper, Tamer HAssan, Lucy Brown and Terence Stamp.
Running time: 103 minutes
 

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