In 2018, shootings of the film by Agnieszka Holland on the Holodomor topic will start

The well-known Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland said that shooting of the “Gareth Jones” film about a journalist who tried to convey the truth to the world about the Holodomor in Ukraine in 1932-33 will begin in February 2018 in Ukraine. This is informed by the resource “Detector Media” with reference to Ukrinform.

“If our plans nothing breaks, then we will start filming in February 2018 in Ukraine. The first act is Gareth Jones’s journey to Ukraine, in fact, his collision with the Holodomor. After a short break, we will continue filming around April in Poland and then in the UK, mostly in Scotland. I want to finish the film by the end of 2018 and show it for the first time in Ukraine,” said Agnieszka Hollande.

At the same time, the director is not yet ready to name the date of the premiere of the film.

“Until we start filming, we can not talk about the date of the premiere. The concept is such that it is not a documentary drama, some kind of a nearly documentary reconstruction. I want it to be a film with a stylistic idea. George Orwell will appear with his “Farm of Animals” there as one of the elements of the story. Some scenes will be shown in a somewhat onyric way, as those by Orwell or Franz Kafka.

Instead, the image of the famine, this Ukrainian fragment, should be shown as realistically as possible, almost documented. But at the same time, through the eyes of this young man who unexpectedly discovers the very essence of evil for himself, since he suspected that something bad was happening, but he could not even imagine the scale of the crime, the extent of human patience. He instantly finds himself in a nightmare, can not believe that it’s all really happening to him,” said the director.

The role of British journalist Gareth Jones will play, according to her, the young Irish actor Jack Reynor. “He has a strong motivation. He is currently actively studying documents, reading books. This is a very responsible step for him. I think that he will convey the essence of the story well,” said Agnieszka Hollande.

She also said that five-six Ukrainian actors will be involved in the filming. “There will be also Polish actors, but most will be British, maybe some more from Europe. This is natural, because the environment of Western journalists in Moscow at that time was very international”, – stressed the Polish director.

Filming in Ukraine will take place near Kyiv, perhaps in Kyiv itself, in Poland the will take place in Krakow and in Upper Silesia. According to the director, the movie will have world distribution.

“The film will last about two hours. It will be played in the languages of the history. Therefore, there will be English, Ukrainian, Russian. We have ambitions and hopes that it will be viewed by as many people as possible because the film will have worldwide distribution. Let’s see what will conclude from this,” ended Agnieszka Holland.

Agnieszka Holland – one of the directors of the series by Netflix “House of Cards” (USA). Representative of the Polish School of Cinema, who worked with Andrzej Wajda and Krzysztof Zanussi. Her latest work in Poland is Oscar-nominated movie “In the Dark”, which takes place during the World War II in Lviv, and the film “Trail” based on the novel by Olga Tokarchuk, which received the Silver Bear at Berlinale-2017.