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.
Tag: 1980s
Although engaged, an eccentric young doctor begins a relationship with several other girls, including the posh upper class seductress who wants to control him, and an edgy woman who’s a lot like him.
Two strangers knock on the door of Dr. Samuel Mudd. One has a broken leg. Mudd fixes it, and becomes an unwitting conspirator in the murder of Abraham Lincoln when his patient turns out to be a fleeing John Wilkes Booth. Railroaded by Lincoln’s secretary of war, Mudd is found guilty and sentenced to life in Fort Jefferson Prison. His wife, Frances, however, won’t rest until her husband’s wrongful conviction is overturned.
Set during the World War I in a prison cell. A newspaper satirist, a safecracker and a clerical murderer have been loaded into a common cell until the investigation into their supposed crimes has been finished. The journalist takes copious notes on the situation hoping to publish them later as a novel. The writer catches typhus and in his feverish delirium is no longer able to distinguish between the reality and fantasy of his writing.
Margo is an ex-stripper who meets her long, lost father in Mexico. She looks after him in the waning days of his life, with the help of a traveling projectionist. The father passes away, telling of the loot from a botched bank robbery that he buried years earlier. The two get jobs in town as their relationship grows and they search for the treasure on the weekends. But while the treasure seems to bring them together, it also seems to be tearing them apart.
Jimmy Wing is a Florida journalist and long-time friend of Elmo Bliss, a local businessman and politician involved in real-estate development. Bliss reveals his ruthless side, threatening Wing when the reporter becomes close to the beautiful wildlife conservationist Kat Hubble, one of a group of ecologists that stands in the way of a new landfill. While Wing clashes with Bliss, his life gets even more complicated as his romance with Hubble progresses.
Successful advertising executive Julius Armburstdiscovers his wife, Paula, is cheating on him with a hunky blond named Stefan. Believing that the best way to earn back Paula’s affection is to be more like unorthodox Stefan, Julius endeavors to transform himself into a nonconformist artist. Comic mishaps ensue when Julius, in his zeal to adopt a Bohemian lifestyle, moves in with the guileless Stefan.
As part of a television series devoted to Europe’s major cities, Angelopoulos was commissioned to make this film about Athens. Although much of Angelopoulos’ cinema is set among the villages of the northern countryside, he was born and raised in the city, so this film finds the director musing on an Athenian past that is variously ancient, national and personal, as well as clips from the “history” films The Travelling Players, The Hunters and Alexander the Great.