"20 days in Mariupol" is to be submitted to "Oscar"

The Ukrainian film “20 Days in Mariupol”, which will be shown on the big screen from August 31, is to be submitted for the “Oscar” in the “Best Documentary” category.

The director of the film, Mstislav Chernov, said this during the preview screening in Lviv on August 27. The film “20 Days in Mariupol” won several significant international awards, including the Sundance Film Festival Grand Prize and the Pulitzer Prize.

The company "Arthouse Trafik", which distributes the tape, about its decision.

"20 days in Mariupol"

The international organization Reporters Without Borders has published the list of winners of the annual competition for journalistic works "For the freedom of the press". Ukrainian photographers Mstislav Chernov and Evgeniy Maloletka from the American news agency Associated Press won in the category "For Influence". The prize was awarded for their reports from Mariupol.

According to the organizers' website, Chernov and Maloletka were "the only reporters who covered the bombing of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol for three weeks".

"The Russians were hunting us. They had a list of names, including ours, and they were closing in. We were the only international journalists left in Mariupol, Ukraine, and we documented its siege by Russian troops for more than two weeks. armed thugs The surgeons gave us white coats as camouflage.

Suddenly at dawn a dozen soldiers rushed in: "Where are the journalists, damn it?"

I looked at their armbands, blue for Ukraine, and tried to calculate the probability that they were Russians in disguise. I took a step forward to identify myself. "We're here to get you out" - they said.

"The walls of the office were shaking from artillery and machine gun fire outside, and it seemed safer to stay inside. But the Ukrainian soldiers had orders to take us with them".

Mstislav Chernov is a video journalist for The Associated Press. This is his account of the siege of Mariupol, documented with photographer Evgeniy Maloletka and told to correspondent Lori Hinnant.

20 days in Mariupol

Evgeniy Maloletka helps a paramedic transport a woman injured during shelling in Mariupol, March 2, 2022.

20 days in Mariupol

Mstislav Chernov reads messages on his phone three days before the start of the Russian invasion of Volnovakha, Ukraine, February 21, 2022. On the evening of February 23, Chernov went to Mariupol with his colleague Evgeniy Maloletka.

20 days in Mariupol

A woman whose husband was killed in the shelling cries on the floor of a corridor in a hospital in Mariupol, March 11, 2022.
 
 

20 days in Mariupol

Medical workers treat a man injured by shelling at a hospital in Mariupol, March 4, 2022.

20 days in Mariupol

A woman holds her baby in an improvised bomb shelter in Mariupol, March 7, 2022.

Mariupol as Symbol of Russian aggression in Ukraine

Mariupol is a symbol of what happened to Ukraine. It was a modern European city of 400 000 inhabitants. Within two months, it was destroyed, and Ukrainian officials estimate that more than 20,000 people died. its inhabitants. The picture tells the story from the first moments of the war to the last days of the besieged Azovstal steelworks and the fall of the city.

This is a story about war crimes and suffering. It also talks about people who showed extraordinary courage and an unyielding spirit.

After nearly a decade covering international conflicts, including the Russia-Ukraine war, for The Associated Press, 20 DAYS IN MARIUPOL is Mstyslav Chernov’s first feature film. The film draws on Chernov’s daily news dispatches and personal footage of his own country at war. It offers a vivid, harrowing account of civilians caught in the siege, as well as a window into what it’s like to report from a conflict zone, and the impact of such journalism around the globe.

Thousands of civilians were trapped on the spot in conditions of a humanitarian catastrophe. There is a problem with access to water, food, or medicine. Several times an attempt was made to evacuate the civilian population – each time the Russians fired on the “green corridors”, despite earlier ceasefire agreements.