Mstyslav Chernov’s filmmaking gives people under bombardment time to be heard. We strongly recommend 20 Days in Mariupol, with a warning about its distressing images and a reservation about narration that presses too hard.
Fi1m perspective
In 20 Days in Mariupol (2023), residents ask the journalists to record what is happening to them. Those requests matter: the people being filmed have something they need the camera to do. Chernov does not let our discomfort at watching settle the question of whether he should keep filming. We were horrified by the footage of injured children and their parents’ distress, which he holds before us long enough that we cannot treat it as another passing news item.
His move from daily reporting to feature documentaries is the important turn in this work. A background in photography and Associated Press reporting led to 20 Days in Mariupol, assembled from 30 hours of footage. This is also collaborative reporting, with colleagues including photographer Evgeniy Maloletka and field producer Vasilisa Stepanenko. Chernov keeps his own courage out of the foreground, leaving the civilians to hold our attention.
Chernov’s narration helps establish whose account we are hearing, but its sombre emphasis sometimes tells us how to feel after the footage has already done so. Jordan Dykstra’s music adds another prompt to feel the seriousness of what we are seeing, and we rarely need it. These are limited objections to reporting this direct and attentive. Still, the plainest passages, with civilians speaking for themselves, make us wish the film trusted its recorded voices a little more.
His second feature, 2000 Meters to Andriivka (2025), follows a Ukrainian platoon during the 2023 counter-offensive near Bakhmut. That moves his attention from civilians under siege to soldiers, while he continues his work as a frontline reporter. It is a development worth following, though 20 Days in Mariupol is the film on which our recommendation rests. Begin there, but take the warning about injured children seriously.
Biography
Mstyslav Chernov is a Ukrainian filmmaker, war correspondent and photojournalist. Born on 3 July 1985 in Kharkiv, he began his career as a photographer in 2005 and has worked as a journalist for the Associated Press since covering conflicts including the War in Donbas.
Chernov directed, wrote and produced the documentary 20 Days in Mariupol (2023), in which he also appears as narrator and interviewer. The film, based on footage shot during the siege of the city, won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and the BAFTA for Best Documentary. He is also known for directing 2000 Meters to Andriivka (2025). His work on the siege earned a shared Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2023.
