RBC-Ukraine published the documentary ‘Our House is on Fire’ about the life of civilians in blockaded Mariupol in February-April 2022. The author of the material is Kolya Oko (Mykola Lazarev), a father of many children from Mariupol, who filmed on his smartphone what happened to him and his family during the russian troops cordoned off the city
The footage that Oko captured shows people burying murdered neighbors in their yards, eating pigeons and digging up dead relatives who are under the ruins of houses.
In April 2022, Oko and his family managed to evacuate Mariupol, which was surrounded at the time.
The film was edited by Denys Kazanskyi, a Ukrainian blogger and author of the books ‘How Ukraine Lost Donbas’ and ‘Black Fever: The Illegal Coal Mining in Donbas’.
On August 31, the film company ‘Arthouse Traffic’ released the documentary ‘20 Days in Mariupol’ by Mstyslav Chernov in Ukrainian cinemas. He shot the film during the first days of the blockade of Mariupol in 2022.
‘20 Days in Mariupol’ tells about the russian attack on the city on February 24, 2022, the bombing of residential neighborhoods and maternity hospital, the people who lived and worked under the blockade of the city and how Chernov, along with colleagues — photographer Yevhen Maloletka and journalist Vasylisa Stepanenko — managed to leave the city surrounded by russian occupiers.
The director of ‘20 Days in Mariupol’: ‘We all accepted our deaths in a way’
Mstyslav Chernov filmed all the footage during his 20-day stay in Mariupol. According to the videographer, he has been covering military conflicts for nine years (Chernov has filmed in Syria, Afghanistan, Nagorno-Karabakh, Gaza Strip and Iraq. — Note from DTF Magazine), but ‘this film is a personal story’ because ‘it is the story of the community, our community, our people’.
In January 2023, ‘20 Days in Mariupol’ won the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival, where it premiered. The film was presented in the festival’s World Cinema Documentary category.
