Portrait of Evil (2008)

A dramatic dance and music piece that highlights the little known terror-famine in the Ukraine between 1932-1933 (Holodomor). Commissioned by the Ukrainian Consul General of Edinburgh to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the Famine-Genocide, after an introduction by the Bohdan Yaramenko, the first part uses original propaganda footage of Stalinist USSR and then moves on to a dance sequence which symbolises the destruction of the peasant class (Kulaks). A clip from the James Whale's 'Frankenstein' is included as this film was of that period where Hollywood created a fictional horror genre yet the world was unaware of a greater horror taking place in Eastern Europe. And Western apologists such as Walter Duranty and Louis Fischer helped create the cover up which continued until the 1980s. Although the Welsh journalist, Gareth Jones, reported the famine, his report was not welcomed by the Western intelligentsia of the time who still had sympathy with the Soviet regime.