The Guide (Ukrainian: Поводир, Povodyr) is a 2014 Ukrainian drama film directed by Oles Sanin. It was selected as the Ukrainian entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 87th Academy Awards, but was not nominated. There was some controversy over the selection of the film in Ukraine regarding the voting process. There is a special audiodescripted version for blind people.

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Plot

Soviet Ukraine, 1930s. American engineer Michael Shamrock arrives in Kharkiv with his ten-year-old son, Peter to help "build socialism". He falls in love with an actress Olga who has another admirer, Commissar Vladimir.

Under tragic circumstances, the American is killed and his son is saved from his pursuers by a blind bard (kobzar). With no other chance to survive in a foreign land, the boy becomes his guide.

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Cast

• Stanislav Boklan as Ivan Kocherga

• Jeff Burrell as Michael Shamrock

• Anton Sviatoslav Greene as Peter Shamrock

• Oleksandr Kobzar as Comrade Vladimir

• Iryna Sanina as Orysia

• Jamala as Olga

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The events in the film take place in the early 1930th in Soviet-occupied Ukraine during the period of industrialization, collectivization, the Holodomor (genocidal famine, orchestrated by Moscow) and liquidation of Ukrainian cultural elite. American businessman Michael Shamrock with his ten-year old son Peter come to the city of Kharkiv. Michael has a plan; he wants to exchange his tractor for grain. Сomrade Vladimir meets Michael with his son and makes him an extremely profitable proposition. Michael only has to say that he is a communist and he has come to build a tractor factory. During the celebration of the first tractor launch, one of the republic heads gives secret papers about planned repressions in Ukraine to Michael. These papers Michael has to give to a Western reporter by the name of Gareth. On his way to railway station, Michael hides the secret papers in his son's book. In the train Peter becomes an accidental witness of his father's murder. By chance the boy succeeds in fleeing due to the blind bandura player Ivan Kocherha. NKVD (i.e. National Commission of Internal Affairs) in Moscow forges the case about the murder of an American communist, accuses the Ukrainian resistance movement of it and starts the repressions. Vladimir gets the order to find the boy and papers at any price. Meanwhile Peter joins the blind man as his guide.

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