Mstyslav Chernov’s next documentary is called ‘2000 Meters to Andriivka’. At Sundance, like ‘20 Days in Mariupol’, it takes part in the World Cinema Documentary Competition
The events of the film take place during the Ukrainian counteroffensive in 2023. Chernov follows a Ukrainian platoon to liberate a strategic village of Andriivka in the Donetsk region, ‘surrounded by mines and only accessible through a tiny sliver of wooded land’.
‘But the farther they advance through their destroyed homeland, the more they realize that this war may never end’, the description reads.
According to Indian screenwriter and programmer for the Sundance Film Festival focusing on documentary feature films Sudeep Sharma, ‘2000 Meters to Andriivka’ is ‘a remarkable film about the terrible beauty in liberating one’s home’.
The film will be available to view online from January 30 through February 2 and offline at press screenings from January 29 through February 2. Ticket sales for the online screenings will begin on January 16.
Chernov first announced the project in October 2024. At that time he was in the United States, where he was editing the film. The director also noted the difficulty of finding financing for the film, as investors are afraid to put money in at the production stage, ‘because the director or character may die’.
About other films in the Documentary Film Program
Along with ‘2000 Meters to Andriivka’, the Documentary Film Program presents the film ‘Mr. Nobody Against Putin’ by American director David Borenstein and russian Pavel Talankin.
Talankin is a russian schoolteacher who invited Borenstein to make a film about propaganda in schools, which intensified after russia’s full-scale invasion. The film was shot in secret for two years.
‘‘Mr. Nobody Against Putin’ is a portrait of life in russia today and the impossible choices citizens face when the country they love is in the hands of a ruler who demands it become something they can’t accept’, Sharma describes the project.
About ‘20 Days in Mariupol’
Mstyslav Chernov’s previous documentary, ‘20 Days in Mariupol’, also premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
The film tells about the russian attack on the city on February 24, 2022, the bombing of residential neighborhoods and a maternity hospital, the people who lived and worked under the blockade of the city and how Chernov, along with colleagues — photographer Evgeniy Maloletka and journalist Vasilisa Stepanenko — managed to escape from the city surrounded by russian occupiers.
Mstyslav Chernov shot all the footage during his 20-day stay in Mariupol. According to the videographer, he has been covering military conflicts for nine years, but ‘this film is a personal story’ because ‘it is the story of the community, our community, our people’.
In May 2023, Chernov, Stepanenko, Maloletka, along with the American journalist Lori Hinnant who supervised their work, received the Pulitzer Prize.
In February, ‘20 Days in Mariupol’ won the main British film award BAFTA for Best Documentary, and in March it won the best documentary Oscar.
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