The Sundance Film Festival has released a video presentation of Mstyslav Chernov’s documentary ‘2000 Meters to Andriivka’. In the video, the director’s story about his new work is interspersed with footage from the film
‘This is the story of Ukrainian soldiers fighting for every inch of their land, — Chernov says in the video. — This is the story of a small forest and the village of Andriivka — just two hours from my hometown (Chernov was born in Kharkiv. — Note from DTF Magazine). This is the story of modern warfare — how it is fought, endured and how it changes us’.
This year’s Sundance will run from January 23 to February 2. ‘2000 Meters to Andriivka’ will compete in the World Cinema Documentary Competition category. The film will be presented at the festival by the author.
The events of ‘2000 Meters to Andriivka’ take place during the Ukrainian counteroffensive of 2023. Chernov follows a Ukrainian platoon of the Third Separate Assault Brigade to liberate the strategic village of Andriivka, Donetsk region, which is ‘surrounded by mines and accessible only through a tiny sliver of wooded land’.
Chernov worked on the project with colleague and Associated Press photographer Oleksandr Babenko.
Filming began in September 2023, and work on the movie lasted almost a year and a half. Producers Michelle Mizner and Raney Aronson-Rath, who also won an Oscar for ‘20 Days in Mariupol’, worked on it with Chernov and Babenko. Mizner also edited the film.
The soundtrack was written by composer and producer Sam Slater, who won multiple Grammy Awards for his music for the TV series ‘Chernobyl’ and the film ‘Joker’.
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’.
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’.
