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L'OMBRE DE STALINE

MR JONES

By Agnieszka HOLLAND

FEATURETTE - as BUYER REP

Drama - Completed 2019

An ambitious young Welsh journalist travels to the Soviet Union in 1933 and uncovers the truth behind the
Soviet ‘utopia’ and Stalin’s regime. What was supposed to be a regular news investigation
quickly turned into a life-or-death journey... influencing George Orwell’s famous allegory
Animal

- Year of production
- 2019
- Genres
- Drama, Biography, Historical
- Countries
- POLAND, UNITED KINGDOM, UKRAINE
- Languages
- ENGLISH, RUSSIAN, UKRANIAN
- Budget
- N/A
- Duration
- 140 mn
- Director(s)
- Agnieszka HOLLAND
- Writer(s)
- Andrea CHALUPA
- Cast
- James NORTON, Vanessa KIRBY, Peter SARSGAARD, Joseph MAWLE
- ISAN
- 0000-0005-4DDE-0000-I-0000-0000-K
- Producer(s)
- Stanisław DZIEDZIC (FILM PRODUKCJA), Klaudia ŚMIEJA-ROSTWOROWSKA, Andrea CHALUPA
- Synopsis
- 1933. Gareth Jones is a young ambitious Welsh journalist who gained fame after writing about meeting Hitler, and is now looking for his next big story. The Soviet “utopia” is all over the news, and he can’t help but wonder how Stalin is financing the rapid modernisation of the Soviet Union.
  He decides to travel to Moscow in an attempt to get an interview with Stalin himself. There he meets Ada Brooks, a journalist working for the New York Times, who reveals that the true story about the regime is being violently repressed. Hearing murmurs of government-induced famine, a secret carefully kept by the Soviet censors, Gareth manages to elude the authorities and travels clandestinely to Ukraine, where he witnesses the atrocities of man-made starvations – millions left to starve – as all grain is sold abroad to finance the industrialising Soviet empire.
  Back in London, Gareth publishes an article revealing the horrors he witnessed. But the starvations are quickly denied by Western journalists living in Moscow, all under pressure from the Kremlin. As death threats mount, Gareth has to fight for the truth. He meets a young author, a man by the name of George Orwell, who he shares his findings with...influencing the great allegorical novel Animal Farm.