The film stars Max Irons, Samantha Barks, Barry Pepper, Tamer Hassan, Lucy Brown and Terence Stamp.

Ukrainian Cossack Ivan Kachaniuk defends his family in Central Ukraine's wheat and sunflower farming outskirts of Smila.

Years later, in 1932, Ivan's artist grandson Yuriy marries his childhood sweetheart, Natalka, and studies at the Kyiv Art Academy.

They make a living from grain, sunflowers and other crops until Joseph Stalin's collectivization campaign sends his massive Bolshevik red army to requisition 90% of Ukraine's harvest.

He changes his clothes for the commissar's Russian uniform, takes his pistol, and escapes during a blizzard while being hunted by the Bolshevik soldier guards.

They are pursued onto another cattle train of Ukrainian corpses on their way to be dumped into fire pits, and are chased to the Soviet border, the cold and turbulent Zbruch River.

The concept and screenplay were created by Richard Bachynsky Hoover, who was inspired to make the film after visiting the Pyrohiv museum in 1999.

Canadian Half-Ukrainian Richard Bachynsky Hoover first visited Lviv and Kyiv Ukraine in 1999 then in 2004 to protest the Yanukovych party during the Orange Revolution.

He drafted the screenplay and approached Ian Ihnatowycz, who agreed to fund research and development before committing in 2013 to finance the US$21 million film in its entirety.

"[5][6] The shoot ended in Kyiv on February 5, 2014,[5] concurrent with the 2013 Euromaidan and 2014 Revolution of Dignity demonstrations, in which Bachynsky Hoover and local crew members took part.

Born in Germany of Ukrainian descent, Mendeluk has spent most [of] his career as a director of Canadian TV movies, which this film unsurprisingly resembles.