Ukrainian documentary 20 days in Mariupol wins Oscar 2024

Ukrainian documentary 20 Days in Mariupol, which records a portion of the siege of the city by Russian forces, has won an Oscar for best documentary at the 2024 Academy Awards in Los Angeles, marking Ukraine’s first Oscar win in history.

“I am honored, but I will probably be the first director on this stage to say that I wish I had never made this film,” said 20 Days in Mariupol director Mstyslav Chernov during his acceptance speech.

“I wish to be able to exchange this for Russia never attacking Ukraine, never invading our cities. I wish to be able to exchange this for Russian not killing tens of thousands of my fellow Ukrainians, for them to release all the hostages, all civilians who are now in their jails.”

Along with Chernov, the documentary was produced by Michelle Mizner and Raney Aronson-Rath, and was distributed by U.S. public broadcaster PBS.

"A broadcast from hell on earth,” was the description given to the film by the UK’s Guardian newspaper, who named it one of the best movies of 2023.

The film is based on videos shot by a team of journalists from the Associated Press: video operator Mstyslav Chernov, photographer Yevhen Maloletka, and field producer Vasylisa Stepanenko. They arrived in Mariupol only hours prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion, and managed to escape the city twenty days later.

Luckily, they were able to preserve all of their shot footage, which illuminated the full, jagged horror of war: the destruction of civilian houses by Russian tanks, the deaths of civilians and children, mass graves, and the bombardment of a maternity hospital. Their work provides a view into the depths of Russian atrocity, after Mariupol had been cut off from the outside world — along with power, water, and heating.

The film premiered at the Sundance Independent Film Festival in January 2023, and received the Audience Award, and has won 28 awards and 50 nominations at international film festivals and award shows. These include a BAFTA for Best Documentary Film, a Directors Guild Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary Film, the Tim Herrington Award at the Sheffield Documentary Film Festival, and others. Maloletka, Chernov and Stepanenko also won the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for "courageous reporting from Mariupol during the siege that documented the mass killing of civilians during Russia's invasion of Ukraine."

Maloletka won a World Press Photo 2023 award for his photos from Mariupol, and on the eve of the Oscar, Maloletka, Chernov, and Stepanenko won the Shevchenko Prize for their reporting from the besieged city.

Four more films were nominated for the Oscar 2024 in the Best Documentary Feature Film category: People's President, The Eternal Memory, Four Daughters, and To Kill a Tiger.

Previously, Ukrainian films that had gained Oscar nominations included Yevhen Afineevsky’s Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom, which chronicled the Revolution of Dignity over 93 days during the winter of 2013-14 (nominated in 2016), and A House Made of Splinters directed by Simon Lereng Wilmont (nominated in 2023).

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Read the original article on The New Voice of Ukraine