FAMINE 33

Symposium

The Reds are sweeping across the country, seizing anything edible that farmers may still harbour. Images of hunger, death and violence alternate in colour, black and white and sepia. At the centre of the story stands a peasant family attempting to resist. Through their fate, we experience the “Red Hunger” and “life stripped bare”: empty eyes, famished faces, the living dead. The starving present is juxtaposed with visions of a well-fed past. FAMINE 33 treats one of the darkest chapters and greatest taboo subjects of Soviet history: the Holodomor, as the Ukrainian famine of 1932-33 is known, which claimed the lives of millions of individuals.
HOLOD 33 / HUNGER 33
UKR 1991 / 93 min
Language: Ukrainian
Director: Oles Yanchuk
  • Screenplay: Serhii Diachenko, Les Taniuk
  • Cinematographer: Vasyl Borodin, Mykhailo Kretov
  • Music: Viktor Patsukevych, Mykola Kalandionok
  • Sound: Viktor Bryunchugin
  • Cast: Halyna Sulyma, Heorhii Moroziuk, Oleksii Horbunov, Maksym Koval, Olena Kovtun, Kostiantyn Kazymyrenko, Neonila Svitlychna, Leonid Yanovsyi
  • Producer: Oleksii Chernishov
  • Production Company: Dovzhenko Film Studios
  • World Sales: Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Centre
The Reds are sweeping across the country, seizing anything edible that farmers may still harbour. Images of hunger, death and violence alternate in colour, black and white and sepia. At the centre of the story stands a peasant family attempting to resist. Through their fate, we experience the “Red Hunger” and “life stripped bare”: empty eyes, famished faces, the living dead. The starving present is juxtaposed with visions of a well-fed past. FAMINE 33 treats one of the darkest chapters and greatest taboo subjects of Soviet history: the Holodomor, as the Ukrainian famine of 1932-33 is known, which claimed the lives of millions of individuals.
  • Screenplay: Serhii Diachenko, Les Taniuk
  • Cinematographer: Vasyl Borodin, Mykhailo Kretov
  • Music: Viktor Patsukevych, Mykola Kalandionok
  • Sound: Viktor Bryunchugin
  • Cast: Halyna Sulyma, Heorhii Moroziuk, Oleksii Horbunov, Maksym Koval, Olena Kovtun, Kostiantyn Kazymyrenko, Neonila Svitlychna, Leonid Yanovsyi
  • Producer: Oleksii Chernishov
  • Production Company: Dovzhenko Film Studios
  • World Sales: Oleksandr Dovzhenko National Centre