The film “Family Album” was filmed at the Holodomor Museum

In the Holodomor Museum, the last scenes of the documentary film “Family Album”, produced by Good Morning Films, a director – Maryna Tkachuk, and a producer – Andrii Korniyenko, were filmed.

For this, the film crew visited Great Britain, Austria, as well as the Kharkiv region – just one and a half kilometres from the border with Russia. Samara Pearce, the great-granddaughter of the Austrian engineer Alexander Wienerberger, the author of famous photographs about the Holodomor, specially came to Ukraine to participate in the project.

In the centre of the plot are the events of the past and the present, which are constantly intertwined. In the summer of 1933, while working as an engineer at one of Kharkiv’s enterprises, Alexander Wienerberger secretly, using special equipment, took a series of photographic evidence of the Holodomor. Later, on the basis of these pictures, he compiled the so-called red album, which is kept in the family today.

Ninety years later, his great-granddaughter Samara Pearce, a photographer, returned to Kharkiv to take photos of the city, which has been under Russian fire since the first day of the full-scale war. Samara found the places photographed by her great-grandfather Alex, heard the stories of still-living witnesses of the Holodomor, and also met people whose lives were once again being destroyed by Russia. She recorded their testimonies and will make her own photo album to record the evidence of the new genocide of Ukrainians and tell the whole world about it. Just as her great-grandfather once tried to do that but, unfortunately, was not heard.

The language of cinema is understood all over the world, so it is a good idea to tell foreigners about the events of the past and present through a film, Samara Pearce believes.

“I feel very honoured to be a part of the movie. The team that I am working with, are very experienced, very knowledgeable. And I think it will help bring awareness to not only Holodomor but to the current events going on today. And I hope that it will help people to understand that Ukraine need a voice and they need the help. And I am ready to be its voice. Because I love Ukraine as if it was my own country,” she says.

The Holodomor Museum is a partner in this project and provides scientific and consulting assistance to the film crew. Also, our colleagues participated in the shooting: Acting Director General Lesia Hasydzhak, head of the exhibition and exposition department, Yana Hrynko, and leading researcher Natalia Romanets.

The presentation of the film is timed to the 90s anniversary of the Holodomor.