HARVEST OF DESPAIR

About This Film

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Festival Year: 1986
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Run Time: 55 Minutes
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Film Type: Feature
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Animated: No
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Countr(ies): Canada
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English Subtitles: No
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Captions: None

Film Overview

HARVEST OF DESPAIR is the first documentary to be made about “the forgotten holocaust,” the 1932-33 famine in the Ukraine. Archival film footage and the riveting testimonies of survivors now living in the U.S. and Canada point to the appalling cause of the famine – a deliberate genocide plan decreed by the Soviet central government for political and economic gain. While their wheat-fields produced abundant grain for export, 25,000 Ukrainians starved to death daily, totalling 5 to 10 million by the end of 1933. Called “one of the greatest cover-ups in history,” the grisly horrors described are still denied by the government today. The film indicts not only the Soviet Union, but a world that permits such things to exist, even today.