McMafia and Crown stars in film of heroic journalist
MCMAFIA and Happy Valley actor James Norton and The Crown’s Vanessa Kirby will star in a feature film about Welsh journalist Gareth Jones.
Set in the 1930s, Norton will play Barry-born Jones, who worked for Lloyd George and the Western Mail and was instrumental in exposing the Soviet famine in the 1930s.
Based on real events, the film will see Jones travel to the USSR where he meets New York Times reporter Ada Brooks (Kirby) who exposes the government oppression and famine in the Ukraine, according to Variety.
In the film Jones meets a young George Orwell with whom he shares his findings.
Vanessa Kirby, who plays Ada Brooks, was Princess Margaret in the first two series of The Crown.
The film will be directed by Agnieszka Holland who says: “The script joins, in a very artistic and original way, a few issues from the 20th century which seem particularly valid today.”
Holland added: “George Orwell’s famous novel Animal Farm links everything together. It reveals the mechanisms of totalitarian falsehood, and the terror that can be fought only by resistance to deception and violence. Nobody wanted to shed light on Stalin’s atrocities, which Gareth exposed. Today, we don’t lack corruptible conformists and egoists; we lack Orwells and Joneses. That is why we should bring them back to life.”
Filming is currently happening in the UK, Poland and the Ukraine and also stars Peter Sarsgaard and Celyn Jones.
Born in Barry in 1905, Jones graduated from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, in 1926 with a first class degree in French.
In 1929 he graduated from Trinity College, Cambridge, with a first class honours degree in French, German, and Russian.
In January 1930 he began work as foreign affairs adviser to former British Prime Minister David Lloyd George and travelled to Germany, meeting Hitler and Goebbels.
Then, in the summer of 1931, he toured the Soviet Union with HJ Heinz II of the food company dynasty, producing a diary which probably contains the first usage of the word “starve” in relation to the collectivisation of Soviet agriculture.
In 1932 Jones returned to work for Lloyd George, helping him write his memoirs of World War I.
In March 1933 he travelled to Russia and Ukraine.
On his return he issued an article that was published by newspapers across the English-speaking world.
Its best-known passage read: “I walked along through villages and 12 collective farms. Everywhere was the cry, ‘There is no bread. We are dying’.”
In late 1934 Jones left Britain on a round-the-world fact-finding tour.
Travelling with a German journalist in Japanese-occupied China, Jones and his companion were captured by bandits.
The German journalist was released after two days, but 16 days later the bandits shot Jones on the eve of his 30th birthday.
There were strong suspicions that Jones’ murder was arranged by the Soviets as revenge for the embarrassment he had caused them with the famine report.