Bitter Harvest (2017 film)

Bitter Harvest is a 2017 period romantic-drama film set in Soviet Ukraine in the early 1930s. The film is the first English language feature film depicting Ukraine's man-made famine, the 1932–33 Holodomor. The film stars Max Irons, Samantha Barks, Barry Pepper, Tamer Hassan, Lucy Brown and Terence Stamp.

The film was directed by George Mendeluk. The story and screenplay were written by Canadian Film actor first time screen writer-producer -half Ukrainian on his fathers side Richard Bachynsky Hoover raised in Kingston On. Filming took place in and around Kyiv, Ukraine.

Plot
Ukrainian Cossack Ivan Kachaniuk defends his family in Central Ukraine's wheat and sunflower farming outskirts of Smila. Years later, in 1932, Ivan's artist grandson Yuriy marries his childhood sweetheart, Natalka, and studies at the Kyiv Art Academy. His family are independent Cossack farmers, "kurkuli". They make a living from grain, sunflowers and other crops until Joseph Stalin's collectivization campaign sends his massive Bolshevik red army to requisition 90% of Ukraine's harvest.

The State Art Institute is forced to replace the art instructors with communist instructors who censor art such as Yuriy's, condemning its expression of Ukrainian cultural identity as anti-Soviet. Yuriy storms out in disgust.

During a memorial in a pub for a friend who committed suicide, a half drunk aggressive Soviet captain insults the Ukrainian folklore, music, songs, and dance, starting a fight during which Yuriy stabs the captain in self defense. He is locked up in a brutal Soviet prison with scores of Ukrainian Kurkili - simple farmers, as well as Ukrainian nationalists and any others whom Stalin deems Enemies of the Soviet state. From his cell Yuriy witnesses daily mass executions. Sadistic prison commissar director Medvedev demands Yuriy paint his portrait in return for more food and for his life, but Yuriy senses he will be executed as soon as the portrait is completed. During their second sitting, Yuriy stabs the director in the throat with his paintbrush, killing him. He changes his clothes for the commissar's Russian uniform, takes his pistol, and escapes during a blizzard while being hunted by the Bolshevik soldier guards.

In Smila, Yuriy's wife Natalka and family are enduring the terror of farm director Commissar Sergei Koltsov who attempts to rape her and uses food as a weapon, but Natalka poisons his borscht with wild mushrooms and joins other peasant women in a Babsi revolt that were taking place all over Soviet controlled Ukraine.Sergei  survives the mushroom poisoning and orders his Bolshevik troops to put down the revolt. Yuriy's family and the villagers are imprisoned in the church, now their torture chamber and prison cell.

In the northern Kyivan forests Yuri meets Lubko, a desperately hungry boy with other hungry children. Yuri is guided by Lubko  through the forest to a cattle train stop towards Smila. That evening they are joined at their camp by the Kholodnyi Yar (Cold Ravine) Ukrainian Cossack detachment.Next morning they engage in a bloody battle, with the Bolsheviks Gatling gunning down the uprising as both sides suffer heavy casualties.

Yuriy and Lubko sneak aboard a cattle train full of starved Ukrainian corpses and witness massive starvation and death of their fellow Ukrainians on the roadsides and in pits. Nearing Smila they hijack a Soviet grain truck whose sympathetic Bolshevik soldier driver joins Yuriy's rescue mission, bringing grain to the Smila villagers. Yuriy, Natalka, and Lubko escape, others of the family starve or are murdered by Koltsov's forces. Yuri and Natalka and Lubko are pursued onto another cattle train of Ukrainian corpses on their way to be dumped into fire pits, and are chased to the Soviet border, diving into the cold and turbulent Zbruch River dodging bullets underwater hoping to cross the river to temporarily Polish-controlled West Ukraine to get to the city of Lviv,to seek help from the head Ukrainian Arch Bishop Andrey Sheptytsky to provide them with possible   visa  travel documents and Canadian Ukrainian Diaspora contacts to cross the Atlantic via a immigrant sailing ship in exchange for the vast rich pastures of Ukraine for the prairies of Manitoba, Canada.

Location
The film depicts Kyiv and its Ukrainian hamlets and farm land, and was filmed in Pyrohiv Kyiv district outdoor museum, Ukraine, which doubles for the village outside Smila of a century ago. The concept and screenplay were created by Richard Bachynsky Hoover, who was inspired to make the film after visiting the Pyrohiv museum in 1999. He wrote the first draft of his script in 2004 and wrote several drafts over the years until his final in 2013 which attracted the investment to make his dream film finally after many hardships getting serious producers and funding on the table.

Production
Half-Ukrainian Richard Bachynsky Hoover first visited Ukraine in 1999 with his first wife Sofia.Years later in 2004 again he visited to protest against pro Putin Yanukovych party vs pro west Democratic opponent Victor Yuschenko  during the Orange Revolution. He drafted the first rough screenplay and approached Ian Ihnatowycz, who agreed to fund research and development of his material over years before committing in 2013 to finance the US$21 million film in its entirety.

Filming began in Ukraine on November 15, 2013, under the working title "The Devil's Harvest". Ihnatowycz said, "Given the importance of the Holodomor, and that few outside Ukraine knew about this man-made famine because it had been covered up by the Kremlin regime, this chapter of history needed to be told in English on the silver screen for the first time in feature film history."

The shoot ended in Kyiv on February 5, 2014, concurrent with the 2013 Euromaidan and 2014 Revolution of Dignity demonstrations, in which Bachynsky Hoover and local crew members took part. Bachynsky Hoover was injured by a chemical grenade.

Post-production continued in early 2014 at London's Pinewood Studios, using the James Bond tank to film underwater scenes.

Release
Roadside Attractions, an Indy arm of Americas Lions Gate Films Corp., released the film in the US on February 24, 2017. "D" Films Canada launched Bitter Harvest on March 3 in Canada. The film was launched in other countries during the first quarter of 2017.

Box office
Global box office sales were approximately US$1 million. It was screened in various venues in more than 100 countries in 2017/18.

Critical response
Bitter Harvest has a negative approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 61 reviews, where the consensus states, "Bitter Harvest lives down to its title with a clichéd wartime romance, whose melodrama although honors the victims of the real-life horrors it uses as a backdrop." Sheri Linden of the Los Angeles Times called the film "utterly devoid of emotional impact." Peter Debruge of Variety wrote "there can be no doubt that the events deserve a more compelling and responsible treatment than this." The New York Times review wrote, "The topic is worthy, but the execution is a bit heavy-handed."

Godfrey Cheshire for RogerEbert.com gave Bitter Harvest 3 stars out of 5. He wrote, "Unfortunately, "Bitter Harvest" can't even claim the virtues of a superior dramatic feature. Born in Germany of Ukrainian descent, Mendeluk has spent most [of] his career as a director of Canadian TV movies, which this film unsurprisingly resembles. [...] Its narrative and visual approach almost suggests a compendium of the clichés one should avoid in a film like this."

In positive reviews, Adrian Bryttan of The Ukrainian Weekly praised the film's direction and storytelling, calling it the "world-class Ukrainian art film of our time." The Sydney Morning Herald called the film "a rousing tale with political pertinence". Several reviews agreed that the film would raise awareness, and did accurately depict the subject matter.