The documentary “20 Days in Mariupol” by director and videographer Mstislav Chernov has won an Oscar in the “Best Documentary” category. This was announced during the live broadcast of the 2024 Academy Awards ceremony on the evening of March 11. This is the first Oscar for Ukraine.
The film depicts the events at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, when Russia began destroying peaceful towns in Ukraine. In particular, the film shows the first days of the siege of Mariupol, which was surrounded and shelled by the Russians. The only team of journalists stuck in the besieged city of Mariupol—reporters from the AP news agency—try to continue their work and document the tragedies of war. The film shows footage of Russian shelling and the bombing of a maternity hospital. The film exposes the crimes and terrorism of the aggressor country to the world community.
“I am grateful. But I will probably be the first director on this stage to say: I wish I had never made this movie. I wish I could exchange it for Russia never attacking Ukraine and never occupying our cities. I would give all this credit for the Russians not killing tens of thousands of my fellow Ukrainians. I would have given it to release all the hostages, the soldiers who defended our country, the civilians in their prisons. But I can’t change history, I can’t change the past. But together—and among you are the most talented people in the world—we can put everything in its place in history so that the truth prevails. And so that the people of Mariupol who died and those who gave their lives will never be forgotten. Because cinema shapes memory, and memory shapes history,” said Mstislav Chernov when accepting the award in Los Angeles.
Before the Oscars, the film was nominated for 40 awards in January 2024 alone and won more than 20 awards.
The film is available free of charge in German in the media library of the ARD and the Erste:
www.daserste.de/information/reportage-dokumentation/dokus/videos/20-tage-in-mariupol-video-100.html
It can also be viewed in English on YouTube:
https://youtu.be/dql0DP9fekc?si=FZWEf9x2WbPcJayz
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Kriegsgebiet in der Ukraine. Foto: tünews INTERNATIONAL / Yana Rudenko.
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