Director Agnieszka Holland is shooting scenes in the southern Polish city of Kraków for a new thriller about a journalist who in the 1930s was one of the first to document the Great Famine in Ukraine.

Based on real events, Gareth Jones follows a young Welsh investigative journalist as he travels deep into the Soviet Union.

Kraków stands in for Moscow and London in the movie. Scenes will also be filmed in Warsaw and other Polish cities.

The role of Gareth Jones is played by English actor James Norton, known for his roles in TV series such as War & Peace.

Producers say they want the film to be released at the beginning of 2019.

Jones travelled to Ukraine in the 1930s and published articles about the Great Famine, but his accounts were undermined by other journalists in Western Europe.

In 1935, Jones was abducted by bandits and murdered during a trip to Manchuria.

The Great Famine was a man-made disaster in Soviet Ukraine in 1932 and 1933 that killed up to 10 million people, according to some estimates.

Some scholars believe that the famine was deliberately orchestrated by Soviet leader Joseph Stalin for political reasons.

(pk/gs)

Source: PAP