Title: Fields of Ashes
Genre: Historical Drama / Political Thriller
Logline:
In 1933 Ukraine, as Stalin’s regime enforces brutal grain requisitions, a schoolteacher risks everything to save her family and preserve the truth about a man-made famine that will kill millions, while a conflicted Soviet journalist struggles between serving propaganda and exposing genocide.
Synopsis:
The film opens with sweeping shots of Ukraine’s fertile wheat fields—“the breadbasket of Europe.” But as Stalin accelerates collectivization, grain is seized at gunpoint, leaving villages starving.
We follow Nadia, a young widowed schoolteacher in a rural village, who hides scraps of food for her two children while watching her neighbors wither away. Secretly, she keeps a journal documenting the famine, knowing that telling the truth is punishable by death.
Parallel to her story, in Moscow, Dmitri, a Soviet journalist with ambitions of rising in the Party, is assigned to travel to Ukraine and report that collectivization is a success. When he arrives, he confronts the horrific reality—emaciated children, entire villages wiped out, cannibalism whispered in the night. He must choose between loyalty to Stalin and the salvation of his own conscience.
The two storylines intersect when Nadia’s journal is smuggled into Dmitri’s hands. Together, they try to get the truth beyond Soviet borders—risking capture by the NKVD.
Themes:
- The struggle between truth and propaganda.
- The resilience of ordinary people against totalitarian cruelty.
- The moral cost of survival.
Tone & Style:
Think of Schindler’s List and The Pianist—a stark, emotional portrayal of suffering, with brief but powerful moments of human kindness and resistance. Cinematography would contrast golden wheat fields at harvest with the desolation of empty barns and frostbitten corpses in the snow.
Ending:
The film closes with Nadia’s children surviving through Dmitri’s sacrifice, as he is executed for treason. Her journal resurfaces decades later, becoming part of Ukraine’s testimony to the world. A final title card reminds the audience: Millions died in the famine of 1932–33. The Soviet Union denied it for over half a century.