In October last year, Russia banned a documentary depicting the famine that hit parts of the Soviet Union including Ukraine between 1921 and 1923 and revoked the film’s screening licence. Now the film is to have its UK premiere (with English subtitles) on June 22 in east London.
Famine is an artistically sophisticated but in many respects unremarkable historical documentary. It does a good job of telling viewers about its subject, which is not one familiar to the Russian public, despite being one of the most traumatic events in the country’s history and worst famines of the 20th century. It killed approximately 5 million people and would have been worse but for an international relief effort led by the US.
