Film on Reporter of Great Ukrainian Famine

[henryk]

http://www.thenews.pl/1/11/Artykul/4014 ... m-Festival

Polish movie at Berlin Film Festival
Polish Radio 15.01.2019 08:00

The latest movie by Polish director Agnieszka Holland has been included in the main competition of the upcoming Berlin Film Festival.

Director Agnieszka Holland (left) with Radio Poland reporter Danuta Isler (right)

Entitled Mr. Jones, the new Agnieszka Holland film traces the life of Welsh journalist Gareth Jones, who reported on the Great Famine in Soviet Ukraine that killed millions in 1932 and 1933. According to historians, the famine was devised by Stalin to eliminate a Ukrainian independence movement. Jones was murdered in 1935 under mysterious circumstances amid suspicions that his death had been engineered by the Soviet NKVD police.

In the film, Jones is portrayed by English actor James Norton, while Vanessa Kirby plays Ada Brooks, a New York Times reporter who helps the main hero uncover the Soviet government’s genocidal policies. Several Polish actors are on the cast of Mr. Jones. The film’s screening in Berlin will mark its world premiere.

In 2017, Agnieszka Holland’s Spoor won the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize at the Berlin Film Festival. This year’s festival opens in Berlin on February 7. Holland’s credits include In Darkness; Europa, Europa; A Secret Garden; Washington Square; The Third Miracle; To Kill a Priest; Total Eclipse and Copying Beethoven.

(mk/gs)

[Kajtmaz]

https://www.berlinale.de/en/programm/be ... =201912053

In March 1933, Welsh journalist Gareth Jones takes a train from Moscow to Kharkov in the Ukraine. He disembarks at a small station and sets off on foot on a journey through the country where he experiences at first hand the horrors of a famine. Everywhere there are dead people, and everywhere he goes he meets henchmen of the Soviet secret service who are determined to prevent news about the catastrophe from getting out to the general public. Stalin’s forced collectivisation of agriculture has resulted in misery and ruin; the policy is tantamount to mass murder. Supported by Ada Brooks, a New York Times reporter, Jones succeeds in spreading the shocking news in the West, thereby putting his powerful rival, the Pulitzer Prize-winning, pro-Stalin journalist Walter Duranty, firmly in his place.
Shot in Poland, Scotland and in original locations in the Ukraine, Agnieszka Holland’s film recalls the legendary journalist Gareth Jones (1905-1935) who, despite fierce resistance, could not be dissuaded from telling the truth. Jones’s encounter with the young George Orwell is said to have inspired the latter’s dystopian parable ‘Animal Farm’ (1945).

Poster

[henryk]

And the NY Times reports:

How The New York Times Contributed To Ukraine’s ‘Bitter Harvest’ In The 1930s

Joseph Stalin received great publicity, the New York Times published exclusive interviews with Stalin, and Walter Duranty could live glamorously. Everyone benefitted but starving Ukranians.

By Eugene Veklerov March 24, 2017

Canadian filmmakers have just released a movie titled “Bitter Harvest” that recreates a tragic chapter in Ukrainian history. Ukraine suffered a devastating famine in the early 1930s that left millions of people dead. The movie portrays a story of two lovers struggling to survive during that dark period.

But this article is not a film review. Rather, it is a peek into how the American mainstream media covered these events some 85 years ago.

There is no consensus among historians as to the extent and causes of the famine. The estimates vary widely between 2.5 and 10 million people. In 2006, the Ukrainian parliament passed a law recognizing the famine as an intentional act of genocide by the Communist regime against the Ukrainian people. The current Russian government argues Communist Joseph Stalin’s disastrous economic policies caused the famine, but rejects the argument that it was a genocide specifically targeting ethnic Ukrainians.

Regardless of that dispute, the famine was definitely a tragedy of enormous proportions. Now, imagine that you live in the United States in the early 1930s and get your news from The New York Times (NYT). What do you know about this tragedy? The short answer is nothing.

The New York Times, Apologist for Communist Murder

The head of the NYT’s Moscow bureau at that time was Walter Duranty, an apologist for Bolshevism. American left-wing intellectuals enthusiastically greeted his dispatches from the Soviet Union. In 1931, Duranty was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for a series of articles in the NYT that covered up Stalinism’s atrocities.

He vociferously denied the existence of the famine in Ukraine, claiming people were “hungry but not starving” and “there is no famine or actual starvation.” Some other Western journalists covering the USSR honestly reported on the famine. One of them was the Manchester Guardian’s Moscow correspondent Gareth Jones, but Duranty tried to discredit Jones’ reports, calling him a liar.

Other Western intellectuals denied the famine in Ukraine in the 1930s, including notably George Bernard Shaw. Some were duped—perhaps willingly—by their KGB handlers who showed them Potemkin’s villages. Duranty’s case had more sinister twists, because we know he was aware of the famine. According to his biography, titled “Stalin’s Apologist,” by Sally J. Taylor, Duranty admitted this when he visited the British embassy in Moscow in June 1932. An embassy official duly recorded his conversation with Duranty to that effect and dispatched his report to the British Foreign Office in London.

Money Hides a Lot of Other People’s Woes

We do not know what drove his desire to spread the fake news, but it may be related to his lifestyle in Russia. Taylor describes it as follows. He was a flamboyant lady’s man enjoying a life of luxury by both Russian and Western standards of that time. He had a researcher, a secretary, a chauffeur, a maid, and a cook.

A surreal aspect of Duranty’s life in Russia was his fondness for fine dining. Here is an excerpt from his description of meals available in a restaurant near his hotel: “caviar; … grilled salmon and roast partridge; … fine Russian cheese, hot-house grapes, old port and older cognac.” The NYT was willing to pay for all these amenities because Duranty managed to get exclusive interviews with Stalin. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement for all parties involved: Stalin received a good publicity in the West, the NYT published exclusive interviews with Stalin, which helped its circulation, while Duranty could lead his glamorous and lavish lifestyle.

It was mutually beneficial for all parties—that is, except for the millions of Ukrainian peasants.

The ending of this saga is rather cynical. In 2003, Ukrainian organizations petitioned the Pulitzer Board to posthumously revoke Duranty’s prize. After deliberation, the board extended its “sympathy to Ukrainians … who still mourn the suffering and deaths brought on by Josef Stalin,” but rejected the symbolic petition, claiming that it could not find “clear and convincing evidence of deliberate deception.”

Duranty and his employer simply spread fake news while millions of people were dying. Their role was akin to that of a musical band that knows people in the next room are tortured and murdered, so they play loud music to drown out their screams, thus preventing outsiders from trying to help the victims.

Eugene Veklerov was born in Russia and moved to the US in 1976. He has worked in a University of California research laboratory in the area of applied mathematics. Concurrently, he has taught several classes in computer science. Additionally, he is interested in modern history and connecting it to current events.

[Kajtmaz]

https://womenandhollywood.com/berlinale ... -mr-jones/

Agnieszka Holland has made over 30 films, winning awards including the Golden Globe and Silver Bear, and has been nominated for a BAFTA and an Emmy. Her films “In Darkness,” “Europa Europa,” and “Bittere Ernte” (“Angry Harvest”) were all nominated for Academy Awards.

“Mr. Jones” will premiere at the 2019 Berlin International Film Festival on February 10.

W&H: Describe the film for us in your own words.

AH: Based on true events, it is the story of a young and smart Welsh journalist, Gareth Jones, who travels to Soviet Russia in the hope of interviewing Stalin. He feels something is wrong there and tries to figure out the problem. He succeeds in sneaking to the Ukraine and discovers massive, man-made famine, which is killing millions. He tried to alert the world but was discredited by a powerful New York Times correspondent and by Western politicians.

It is a story about fake news, corruption of media, cowardice of politicians, the indifference of nations, and — ultimately — the courage of an individual.

W&H: What drew you to this story?

AH: I wanted to give justice to one of the worst – and practically unknown – genocides. I felt that the story is incredibly relevant. The world we’re living in [is starting] to look like the worst periods in the 20th century.

I loved the main character: his courage, honesty, and deep understanding of the duty of journalism.

W&H: What do you want people to think about when they are leaving the theater?

AH: I want them to think — to feel, and to try to understand why this story is so important. But first I want them to open their hearts and minds.

W&H: What was the biggest challenge in making the film?

AH: How to express the things you cannot express: the fear, the suffering, and the death of millions of innocents.