Slovo House. Unfinished Novel - Ukrainian Movie Screening

Set in 1920s Kharkiv, Taras Tomenko’s Slovo House: Unfinished Novel (2021) is a haunting historical drama that chronicles the tragic fate of the "Executed Renaissance". The film centres on a luxury apartment building commissioned by Stalin to house Ukraine’s greatest literary minds under one roof. What begins as a "communist paradise" for creatives like Mykola Khvylovy and Les Kurbas rapidly descends into a paranoid nightmare of surveillance and state-mandated socialist realism. The arrival of Volodymyr Akimov, an ambitious but talentless newcomer who secretly works as an NKVD informant, accelerates the community’s destruction. As the Soviet regime tightens its grip, the artists face brutal repression, coerced propaganda, and eventual execution. Shot in atmospheric black-and-white, Tomenko’s feature explores the crushing of Ukrainian cultural identity against the backdrop of the Holodomor genocide, serving as a powerful testament to the resilience of the Ukrainian spirit.

Language - Ukrainian (English subtitles)

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Host or Publisher Canberra Ukrainian Community