In her new feature length documentary, Location Manager/Scout Marta Tomkiw along with filmmaker Bobby Leigh examine a dark and horrific time in which millions of people died due to a man-made famine in Ukraine. The film, “Holodomor: Ukraine’s Genocide” is now available online.
In 1932-33, Ukraine, the breadbasket of Europe, had bountiful crops of grain, yet its people were dying of starvation. This film examines how the government of Josef Stalin ordered the confiscation of harvested grain and food stuffs to crush the will of the Ukrainian people who had been moving toward independence from the USSR. By the end of 1933 nearly 25 percent of the Ukrainian population – over 10 million people, including 3 million children – had perished.
Marta Tomkiw and Bobby Leigh worked on the film over a 5-year period. The crew filmed survivors and historians in Los Angeles, Detroit, New Jersey, Toronto and 14 counties and numerous cities in Ukraine.