You're reading: Romantic drama ‘Bitter Harvest’ hits theaters worldwide

“Bitter Harvest,” a romantic-drama movie about the famine Holodomor that killed millions of Ukrainians in the 1930s, comes to cinemas in Ukraine and abroad on Feb. 23-24.

The movie directed by George Mendeluk, a German-born Canadian film director, tells a love story of two villagers caught in the ravages of Joseph Stalin’s genocidal policies against the Ukrainian people. The estimated number of people in Ukraine who starved to death in 1932-1933 varies from 2 million to 10 million people.

It features a young artist Yuri who, while trying to save his beloved Natalka from famine, gets imprisoned by the Communists but escapes from jail and joins the anti‑Bolshevik movement.

“Stalin’s tyranny could destroy their country. But not their love,” the film’s official poster reads.

 

The film is in wide release starting Feb. 23. It will be screened in Ukrainian in all the major Kyiv cinemas, such as Kyiv Cinema, Zhovten, Multiplex, Oscar and others. The same day “Bitter Harvest” comes to movie theaters in Australia, and on Feb. 24 it opens in the U.S.

Canadians will be able to see the movie on March 3. Producers will also screen the movie in theaters in Germany (from March 24), Taiwan (from April 14) and Singapore (from April 20).

The main character of the film, Yuri, was imprisoned by Stalin's police, but escaped from there. (facebook.com/BitterHarvestTheFilm)

The main character of the film, Yuri, was imprisoned by Stalin’s police, but escaped from there. (facebook.com/BitterHarvestTheFilm)

The film uses a script by Canadian actor of Ukrainian descent Richard Bachynsky-Hoover, who became passionate about telling the famine’s story to the world after he visited his ancestral homeland. He came up with the first draft of the script in 2011.

He showed it to Toronto‑based financier Ian Ihnatowycz, whose family fled Ukraine in the late 1940s, and together they invited Mendeluk to direct what became the “Bitter Harvest.”

Mendeluk took the deal, as his family story also resonated with the plot: Mendeluk’s mother survived the Stalinist starvation policy in the early 1930s before meeting her husband in Germany and fleeing to Canada.

Filmed on location in Ukraine, the film's cast includes Barry Pepper, Tamer Hassan and Terence Stamp. (facebook.com/BitterHarvestTheFilm)

Filmed on location in Ukraine, the film’s cast includes Barry Pepper, Tamer Hassan and Terence Stamp. (facebook.com/BitterHarvestTheFilm)

The movie was being filmed in the Kyiv suburbs from November 2013 until February 2014. The last scenes were filmed just before President Viktor Yanukovych, who didn’t recognize the Holodomor as an act of genocide, fled the country, driven out by the EuroMaidan Revolution.

The film has a prominent international cast with Yuri played by Max Irons, an English-Irish actor famous for starring in “The Host” (2013), and Natalka played by Samantha Barks, known for her memorable performance as Éponine in the film version of the musical “Les Miserables” (2012).

Canadian actor Barry Pepper, famous for playing Daniel Jackson in “Saving Private Ryan” and prison guard Dean Stanton in “The Green Mile,” stars as the protagonist’s father.

“Entire generations were lost during the Holodomor. We are only now beginning to understand the true scale of this human tragedy.”(facebook.com/BitterHarvestTheFilm)

“As you can see from today’s media, Stalin’s long shadow still affects Ukraine, but our story is essentially one of love triumphing over all that life throws at it,” Mendeluk is quoted as saying on the film’s official website, www.bitterharvestfilm.com.

Bitter Harvest runs in most Kyiv theaters, including:

Kyiv Cinema (19 Velyka Vasylkivska St.). 5 p.m. Hr 70-80

Zhovten Cinema (26 Konstyantynivska St.). 9 p.m. Hr 60-80