Cinema Salem Special Film Screening To Benefit Ukraine Relief

SALEM, MA — Cinema Salem will host a special free screening of the Ukraine-based film "The Guide" on Sunday with all donations going toward Ukrainian relief efforts.

Oles Sanin, the film's highly regarded director, is set to speak live from Kyiv via Zoom prior to the screening.

U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton and Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll on Friday were scheduled to speak at the event as well.

Stand with Ukraine is organized by activist and Salem Cinema owner Marshall Strauss, theHarvard Ukrainian Research Institute, the Ukrainian Film Club of Columbia University and partners in the film industry.

Cinema Salem — which recently reopened after winter renovations — said it will be the first American screening of the 2014 film set in the former Soviet Union during the 1930s when Joseph Stalin was "exterminating millions of Ukrainians, largely by starvation."

The film focuses on an American boy named Peter and a blind minstrel named Ivan who are thrown together by fate.

The program begins at 4 p.m. with the speakers at 4:30 and the screening at 5.

Cinema Salem is at the Witch City Mall at East India Square in Salem.

The full film trailer can be found here:

(Scott Souza is a Patch field editor covering Beverly, Danvers, Marblehead, Peabody, Salem and Swampscott. He can be reached at Scott.Souza@Patch.com. Twitter: @Scott_Souza.)