Our Honest Bread

Kira Muratova’s debut feature centers on Makar Zadorozhny, the elderly and wise head of a “kolkhoz” (collective farm) who is suspicious of bureaucratic meddling. After 35 years of leadership, he hands control to his ambitious son, Oleksandr. Using dishonest methods, Oleksandr boosts milk production with faulty machines and colludes with the Communist Party secretary. News of his mismanagement reaches Makar, who returns to sell his house to cover the damage caused by his son and help another struggling farm. Our Honest Bread was co-created with Muratova’s husband Oleksandr Muratov in the style of socialist realism under a noticeable influence of Oleksandr Dovzhenko’s pictorial lyricism. Full of communist pathos, overcrowded with characters and details of macabre Soviet collective farm life, the film now appears no less absurdist than Muratova’s later works. The film was re-edited multiple times due to censorship, eventually being released three years after the filming process was finished.

In commemoration of Oleksandr Muratov, who died on April 14, 2025.