Set in the 1930s, amid the posturing and jostling preceding WWII, Mr. Jones sees Stalin promoting the Soviet “utopia” to the Western world. A young journalist travels to Moscow to uncover the truth behind the propaganda. But what then?

Having herself been persecuted and driven out of Communist Poland, Agnieszka Holland has first-hand experience of totalitarian propaganda and suppression.

Andrea Chalupa’s grandfather was born in Eastern Ukraine, now occupied by Russia, and lived through the Holodomor, the orchestrated famine that killed 4 to 7 million people. Reading his memoirs after his death, Chalupa embarked upon years of research and wrote her debut screenplay.

Today, Ukraine officially observes Holodomor Remembrance Day on the fourth Saturday of November.

“Truth, and an informed public, are the linchpin of a free society.” Gareth Jones’ great-nephew Nigel Colley, speaking at the opening of the Holodomor Exhibition at the U.N. in New York, 23 November, 2009.