Earth (, translit. Zemlya) is a 1930 Soviet silent film by Ukrainian director Oleksandr Dovzhenko. The film concerns the process of collectivization and the hostility of kulak landowners under the First Five-Year Plan. It is the third film, with Zvenigora and Arsenal, of Dovzhenko's "Ukraine Trilogy". The script was inspired by Dovzhenko's life and experience of the process of collectivization in his native Ukraine. That process, which was the backdrop of the film and its production, informed its reception in the Soviet Union, which was largely negative. Earth is commonly regarded as Dovzhenko's masterpiece and as one of the greatest films ever made. The film was voted number 10 on the prestigious Brussels 12 list at the 1958 World Expo. Plot The film begins with a montage of wind blowing through a field of wheat and sunflowers. Next, an old peasant named Semen dies beneath an apple tree, attended by his son Opanas and grandson Vasyl. Elsewhere local kulaks, including Arkhyp Bilokin, denounce collectivization and declare their resistance to it. At Opanas's home, Vasyl and his friends meet to discuss collectivization and argue with Opanas, who is skeptical about collectivization. Later, Vasyl arrives with the community's first tractor to much excitement. After the men urinate in the overheated radiator, the peasants plow the land with the tractor and harvest the grain, in the process plowing over the kulaks' fences. A montage sequence presents the production of bread from beginning to end. That night Vasyl dances a hopak along a path on his way home and is killed by a dark figure. Opanas looks for Vasyl's killer and confronts Khoma, Bilokin's son, who does not confess. Vasyl's father turns away the Russian Orthodox priest who expects to lead the funeral, declaring his atheism. He asks Vasyl's friends to give his son a secular funeral and "sing new songs for a new life." The villagers do so, while Vasyl's fiancée, Natalya, mourns him and the local priest curses them. At the cemetery, Khoma arrives in a frenzy to declare that he will resist collectivization and that he killed Vasyl. The villagers ignore him while one of Vasyl's friends eulogizes him. The film ends with a montage showing a downpour of rain over fruit and vegetables, after which Natalya finds herself embraced in Vasyl's arms. Cast as Opanas as Vasyl Yuliya Solntseva as Vasyl's sister Yelena Maksimova as Natalya as Semen as Khoma