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Saturday 12 December 2015
Sunday 8 November 2015
Wednesday 28 October 2015
Spotlight Pictures picks up $21 Million War Epic ‘Bitter Harvest’ starring Max Irons
Spotlight Pictures announced today that it will launch international sales for the highly emotive $21million dollar epic, BITTER HARVEST, at the American Film Market next month.
Directed by George Mendeluk (The Kidnapping of the President), the film features an exceptional ensemble cast of established and rising stars including, young British sensation, Max Irons (The Riot Club) Academy Award® Nominee, Terence Stamp (Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace, Golden Globe® Nominee, Barry Pepper (Maze Runner: The Scorch Trail), Samantha Barks (Les Miserables) and Tamer Hassan (Layer Cake). Edited by Academy Award® Nominee, Stuart Baird (SKYFALL, CASINO ROYALE, DIE HARD 2) with photography by Douglas Milsome (ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES, THE SHINING), BITTER HARVEST was produced on location in Ukraine and at Pinewood Studios.
Set between the two World Wars and based on true historical events, BITTER HARVEST is the first major dramatic film to convey the untold story of the Holodomor, the genocidal famine engineered by Joseph Stalin that killed millions in Ukraine.
The film follows the journey of Yuri (Max Irons), an artistic soul born into a family of Ukrainian warriors, who struggles to win the approval of his stern grandfather Ivan (Terence Stamp), father Yaroslav (Barry Pepper) and the heart of Natalka (Samantha Barks). Yuri finds his life changed forever with the invasion by the Bolsheviks and the subsequent persecution of his family and fellow countrymen as Stalin’s deliberate regime of terror extends across Eastern Europe.
Upon confirming the deal, Spotlight’s CEO Matt McCombs commented, “We have been tracking this amazing BITTER HARVEST production for many months and watched carefully as the producers, using the incredible editing and post-production skills of Stuart Baird, honed a very special film. We even sat in on several NRG Focus Groups, increasingly excited by the audience reaction. We are very proud to be presenting the film for sales at the AFM.”
In explaining his involvement, producer Ian Ihnatowycz said, “As the grandson & son of Ukrainians who fled the communists in the 40s, I had long been mystified as to the almost complete lack of awareness in the West about the Holomodor. While the actual number of deaths is undetermined, even the most modest estimate is that over 6 million were deliberately starved to death. These were innocent men, women and children and, in all conscience, I couldn’t let this period of Ukrainian history remain in the shadows”.
The film will have its world market premiere during the AFM on Monday, November 9, at the AMC Santa Monica at 3pm.
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Monday 26 October 2015
AFM: Spotlight Pictures to launch 'Bitter Harvest
The Los Angeles-based sales company will introduce international buyers to Andamar Entertainment’s $21m drama at the Santa Monica market next week.
Max Irons, Terence Stamp, Barry Pepper, Samantha Barks and Tamer Hassan star in the inter-war tale about the Holodomor.
The story of the 1932-33 famine engineered by Joseph Stalin that is believed to have killed upwards of 2.5million Ukrainians is told through the eyes of two young lovers.
George Mendeluk directed Bitter Harvest from a screenplay he wrote with Richard Bachynsky-Hoover.
Spotlight will stage the world market premiere at a private screening in Santa Monica on November 9. Ian Ihnatowycz, Stuart Baird, Mendeluk, Chad Barager and Jaye Gazeley produced.
Spotlight Pictures head of acquisitions Carlos Rincon brokered the deal with production attorney William J Immerman on behalf of Andamar Entertainment.
Sunday 25 October 2015
Sunday 18 October 2015
Thursday 15 October 2015
New Movie Reveals Russia's Attempts to Destroy Ukraine
Ukraine is a nation interrupted, its identity and promise stolen by invaders and predators for centuries.
Ukraine's principle oppressor has been, and remains, Russia where leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin propagate the fiction that Ukraine is "little Russia." But the two are distinctive and the Ukrainian language is as different from Russian as is Spanish from French.
Putin's postulation is not only inaccurate, but deeply hurtful and insulting, given Russia's historical and ongoing abuse of Ukraine. In the 1930s, Joseph Stalin perpetrated one of the greatest crimes against humanity by purposely starving to death millions of Ukrainians for resisting his Five-Year Plan to collectivize agriculture.
Finally, a film will be released in the new year that portrays Stalin's monstrous policies and how they brought about The Great Famine of 1933, known in Ukrainian as the Holodomor (death by starvation).
The new movie is entitled Bitter Harvest and stars veteran actor Terence Stamp and new British sensation Max Irons, in his first leading role. It is a love story set during one of history's darkest moments and portrays events most don't know and cannot imagine.
Canadian Ian Ihnatowycz produced this film to set the record straight for the West about the suffering of Ukrainians at the hands of Russia, a reality that still continues. His parents and grandparents fled the country during the Second World War.
"Like all Ukrainians, my family suffered enormously," he said. "There isn't a Ukrainian alive who doesn't know about the persecution, executions, and starvation. Given the importance of what happened, and that few outside Ukraine knew about it because it had been covered up, the story of this genocide needed to be told. It's relevant today."
The scale of The Great Famine remained hidden by the Soviets, but in 1991 Ukraine declared independence and opened the Soviet archives. These revelations led to a 2003 United Nations Joint Statement, signed by Russia, that declared the Holodomor had taken seven to ten million innocent lives. Then on October 23, 2008, the European Parliament adopted a resolution recognizing the Holodomor as a crime against humanity.
The movie is a fitting backdrop to the current violence against Ukraine by Russia. In 1933, alarming reports about mass starvation were reported in the British press, but ignored in the United States. That same year, the United States officially recognized the Soviet Union and in 1934, Stalin won membership into the League of Nations.
Today, concern about Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine has been muted considering that it is Europe's largest country, the size of Germany and Poland combined, with 45 million people.
Several books about the Holodomor have been published since but the most comprehensive is Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, written in 2010 by Yale Professor Timothy Snyder. The slaughter he documents and details is, quite frankly, difficult to comprehend.
"More than five million people starved to death in the Soviet Union in the early 1930s, most of them in Soviet Ukraine. The hunger was caused by collective agriculture, but the starvation was caused by politics," he wrote.
During the Great Terror of 1937 and 1938, "the Soviet leadership identified peasants, the victims of collectivization, as the prime threat to Soviet power. Nearly 700,000 were executed, although the true number may be somewhat higher," he wrote.
Another 300,000 were executed by Ukrainian government puppets of Moscow and hundreds of thousands more shipped off to Gulags and work camps.
Then the Second World War followed. In 1941, Hitler invaded Soviet Ukraine and Belarus. Between 1933 and 1945, Snyder estimates that a total of 14 million non-combatants were killed by Stalin and Hitler in the Bloodlands, principally Ukraine, Poland, and Belarus.
The Holocaust, that killed six million Jews across Europe, took place during this time and has been well documented and depicted. But Bitter Harvest represents the first feature film to expose the world to the catastrophic Holodomor mass murder.
Naturally, the film is disturbing. Stamp's performance is riveting, as the patriarch of a family facing extinction, as is Max Irons' poignant portrayal of Stamp's grandson, a young artist and that of Samantha Barks as his lover.
Irons and Barks are ranking members of the "Brit Pack," young and talented artists from United Kingdom who are successful internationally. He is best known for his roles in The Riot Club in 2014, The White Queen and The Host in 2013, Barks for her performance in the movie version of Les Miserables, and Stamp is an acclaimed veteran of stage and screen.
Distribution plans are being negotiated and the film should be available to the public in 2016.
The movie was filmed at Pinewood Studios and on location in Ukraine where final scenes were shot days before Ukraine's corrupt former President opted in late 2013 to join Russia instead of the European Union. That decision sparked mass street protests throughout Ukraine and eventually his overthrow.
In spring 2014, Putin took advantage of the chaos and sent in operatives to destabilize and occupy Crimea and the Donbas. His objective was to invade and annex most, if not all, of Ukraine, but resistance has been heroic.
"It's ironic that before we even finished our film we had yet another example of Russia's aggression against Ukraine," said Ihnatowycz.
This time, Ukraine is once more a victim of Russian predation and once again a casualty of Russian propaganda and tepid concern by world leaders.
For these and other reasons, Bitter Harvest is an important movie that everyone should see. Its relevance is undeniable and enlightening.
This is the real narrative of Ukraine, an unbowed but bruised nation with defiant resilience, still yearning to be free.
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Wednesday 7 October 2015
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Tuesday 22 September 2015
Sam Neill and Max Irons to star in ITV drama Tutankhamun
Sam Neill is to star in ITV's epic new mini-series Tutankhamun. The Jurassic Park and Peaky Blinders actor will join forces with Max Irons to tell the story behind the discovery of the tomb of one of Ancient Egypt's forgotten pharaohs.
Beginning in 1905, Tutankhamun follows Howard Carter (Irons) and his famous finding, aided by the dashing and eccentric Lord Carnarvon (Neill) who keeps faith in his young counterpart, continuing to back his expeditions when no one else will.
The new drama will look at the personal life of Carter, "a solitary man on the edge of society" who we meet in his early 20s as he fervently leads an expedition. Excavating in Egypt's Valley of the Kings, he has a good relationship with the Egyptians who work alongside him. But when tempers fray, Carter is hotheaded, putting the dig and his career in jeopardy.
With his licence to dig revoked by Cairo's Antiquities Service, Carter spends years as an outcast, living rough and selling his previously discovered relics for food, until a chance meeting with Carnarvon sparks a change in his fortunes and the pair go on to discover the final resting place of the boy king in 1921.
Produced by Simon Lewis (The C Word, The Paradise) and directed by Peter Webber (Girl with a Pearl Earring), the drama will begin shooting in South Africa in mid-October with further casting details announced later in the year.
Neill is known for his movie roles in the Jurassic Park franchise and The Piano, but has appeared on the small screen on numerous occasions, including Merlin, The Tudors and – most recently – Peaky Blinders. Irons is also better known for his work in films but played King Edward IV in the BBC's historical drama The White Queen back in 2013.
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