Directed by Agnieszka Holland and starring James Norton of Granchester fame, this harrowing tale recounts the story of the Welsh journalist Gareth Jones, who was posted in Moscow during the Stalin era, and travelled to Ukraine against all advice and regulations to investigate the
rumours of the famine.
The year was 1933, and Stalin’s policy of collectivization led to the man-made famine that killed millions of Ukrainians – the Holodomor. Jones’s attempts to inform the Western world of these tragedies were thwarted by the conventional press, notably Walter Duranty (Peter Sarsgaard) of the New York Times. But, on his return to Britain, and against much opposition, Jones managed to get his story take seriously... and inspired George Orwell’s Animal Farm.
“It’s a picture with sinew and strength.” Peter Bradshaw,
The Guardian, Feb. 2019