Bitter Harvest 2017 Watch Online

Bitter Harvest: A Tale of Survival

Ukrainian Cossack Ivan Kachaniuk defends his family in Central Ukraine’s wheat and sunflower farming outskirts of Smila. Years later, in 1932, Ivan’s artist grandson Yuriy marries his childhood sweetheart, Natalka, and studies at the Kyiv Art Academy. His family are independent Cossack farmers, “kurkuli”. They make a living from grain, sunflowers and other crops until Joseph Stalin’s collectivization campaign sends his massive Bolshevik red army to requisition 90% of Ukraine’s harvest.

The State Art Institute’s Influence

The State Art Institute is forced to replace the art instructors with communist instructors who censor art such as Yuriy’s, condemning its expression of Ukrainian cultural identity as anti-Soviet. Yuriy storms out in disgust.

A Brutal Turn of Events

During a memorial in a pub for a friend who committed suicide, a half drunk aggressive Soviet captain insults the Ukrainian folklore, music, songs, and dance, starting a fight during which Yuriy stabs the captain in self defense. He is locked up in a brutal Soviet prison with scores of Ukrainian Kurkili – simple farmers, as well as Ukrainian nationalists and any others whom Stalin deems Enemies of the Soviet state. From his cell Yuriy witnesses daily mass executions. Sadistic prison commissar director Medvedev demands Yuriy paint his portrait in return for more food and for his life, but Yuriy senses he will be executed as soon as the portrait is completed. During their second sitting, Yuriy stabs the director in the throat with his paintbrush, killing him. He changes his clothes for the commissar’s Russian uniform, takes his pistol, and escapes during a blizzard while being hunted by the Bolshevik soldier guards.

A Fight for Survival

In Smila, Yuriy’s wife Natalka and family are enduring the terror of farm director Commissar Sergei Koltsov who attempts to rape her and uses food as a weapon, but Natalka poisons his borscht with wild mushrooms and joins other peasant women in a Babsi ladies revolt. Sergei has survived, and orders his Bolshevik troops to put down the revolt. Yuriy’s family and the villagers are imprisoned in the church, now their torture chamber and prison cell.

The Journey Continues

In the northern Kyivan forests Yuri meets Lubko, a desperately hungry boy. They help each other through the forest to a cattle train stop towards Smila. That evening they are joined at their camp by the Kholodnyi Yar (Cold Ravine) Ukrainian Cossack detachment. The next morning they engage in a bloody battle, with the Bolsheviks Gatling gunning down the uprising. Both sides suffer heavy casualties.

Yuriy and Lubko sneak aboard a cattle train full of starved Ukrainian corpses. They witness massive starvation and death of their fellow Ukrainians on the roadsides and in pits. Nearing Smila they hijack a Soviet grain truck whose sympathetic Bolshevik soldier driver joins Yuriy’s rescue mission, bringing grain to the villagers. Yuriy, Natalka, and Lubko escape, others of the family starve or are murdered by Koltsov’s forces. They are pursued onto another cattle train of Ukrainian corpses on their way to be dumped into fire pits, and are chased to the Soviet border, the cold and turbulent Zbruch River. They dodge bullets underwater crossing to Polish-controlled West Ukraine to get to the city of Lviv, hoping for help from the priest Andrey Sheptytsky to exchange the vast rich pastures of Ukraine for the prairies of Manitoba, Canada.

Experience the gripping story of Bitter Harvest and the challenges faced by Yuriy and his loved ones. Watch Bitter Harvest online now and witness the strength and resilience of the Ukrainian people in the face of adversity.