The July Storms is a duology about the first mass protests in Soviet Ukraine in a long time. The parts of the duology, Strike and Outburst, are dedicated to two waves of miners’ strikes in Donetsk, in 1989 and 1990, which were unprecedented in scale. Several hundred thousand miners took part in these historical strikes. The events themselves became a significant factor in the history of the collapse of the Soviet communist system. While recording the unfolding of the strike and the miners’ speeches on the square in Donetsk, the film’s creators also observe the miners’ miserable living conditions and hard working conditions at the Lidiyevka mine.
Anatolii Karas was born in 1940 in the Moscow region in the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic. He is a director and a screenwriter. He graduated from the Taras Shevchenko Kyiv State University. Worked as a reporter for Vechirniy Kyiv, an editor for UkrKinoKhronika, and a director of documentary films.
Selected: The Future Starts Today (1974), Strategy of Quality (1976), A Word about the Five-Year Plan (1980), Komandarms of the Industry (1980), Don’t Touch Me (1981)
Viktor Shkurin was born in 1932 in Mariupol, Ukrainian SSR. He is a film director, a People’s Artist of Ukraine. He graduated from the Odessa Nautical School and the Gerasimov Institute of Cinematography. Worked as a dispatcher and a port director on Spitsbergen; since 1964, he has worked as a director for UkrKinoKhronika.
Selected: The Two from the Open-Hearth Furnace (1965), Paraska Bida and the Good People (1967), In Non-Flying Weather (1968), Date of Birth 1918 (1968), Soviet Character (1988), Leonid Kravchuk. Selection of Fate (2003)
