EXCLUSIVE: Dr. Alfred Roth and Janet Roth’s Raw Truth Entertainment has optioned Kalani Pickhart’s acclaimed debut novel I Will Die in a Foreign Land, with plans to develop it as a film. The Ukrainian American production company will fully finance the pic as its first feature, with an eye on shooting on location in the Ukraine.
The book published by Two Dollar Radio follows four individuals over the course of a volatile Ukrainian winter, as their lives are forever changed by the 2013 Euromaidan protests — a wave of civil unrest that rocked the nation, following its government’s decision to lean into its ties with Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union, rather than signing the European Union–Ukraine Association Agreement. The outrage that followed reflected the public’s perception of pervasive corruption and abuses of power within the Ukrainian government, including the violation of human rights.
One of the novel’s protagonists, Katya, is a Ukrainian-American doctor stationed at a makeshift medical clinic in St. Michael’s Monastery. Misha is an engineer originally from Pripyat, who has lived in Kyiv since his wife’s death; Slava is a fiery young activist whose past hardships steel her determination in the face of persecution; and Aleksandr Ivanovich, a former KGB agent, climbs atop a burned-out police bus at Independence Square and plays the piano.
As Katya, Misha, Slava, and Aleksandr’s lives become intertwined, they each seek their own solace during an especially tumultuous and violent period. The story is also told by a chorus of voices that incorporates folklore and narrates a turbulent Slavic history.
I Will Die in a Foreign Land won the 2022 New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award and was long-listed for the 2022 Virginia Commonwealth University Cabell First Novelist Award upon its publication in October of 2021. Its author’s short fiction has appeared in TriQuarterly Review and the Virginia Quarterly Review, among other oulets. Pickhart has also notably been the recipient of fellowships from the Virginia G. Piper Center and the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Intelligence for Eastern European and Eurasian Studies.
The Los Angeles-based production company Raw Truth Entertainment was founded in 2020, with a mission to share stories that highlight the current state of humanity. The deal for I Will Die in a Foreign Land was negotiated by Gotham Group, which represents Two Dollar Radio.
