Bitter Harvest, due out February 24, is a new romantic-drama movie based on the true and horrifying events of the Holodomor. This is a term which refers to the brutal artificial famine imposed by Stalin on Soviet Ukraine in 1932-33, killings millions.
It began in 1929 when Stalin’s regime began massive waves of deporting the Ukraine’s most successful farmers. At the same time he began executing Ukraine’s religious, intellectual and cultural leaders, culminating in the devastating forced-famine that killed more than 4 million innocent individuals. In fact, by June of 1933, more than 30,000 people died each day, most of them were children under the age of 10. This movie is going to be a serious lesson in history.
Bitter Harvest, directed by George Mendeluk (The Terror Expriment, Meatballs III, Storm Seekers), stars Max Irons (Red Riding Hood, The White Queen, The Host, The Riot Club), Samantha Barks (Les Misérables 2012), Barry Pepper (The Green Mile, Saving Private Ryan, True Grit), Tamer Hassan (The Football Factory, Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead, Layer Cake), Terence Stamp (The Collector, Superman and Superman II, The Limey, Star Wars:I) and Gary Oliver (Game of Thrones, The Bible, New Blood).
The plot of Bitter Harvest follows two lovers, played by Irons and Barks, struggling to survive the Holodomor Soviet regime forced-famine with their Cossack grain farmer families. As Stalin attempts to build a strong and prosperous Soviet Union, a young artist born into a Ukrainian Cossack family named Yuri (Max Irons) fights to survive starvation, detainment and torment to spare his childhood sweetheart Natalka (Samantha Barks) from the Famine. Against this backdrop, Yuri escapes from a Soviet prison and joins the anti-Bolshevik resistance movement as he fights to rejoin with Natalka and proceed with the battle for a free Ukraine.
Bitter Harvest was shot on location in Ukraine. Rated R.
