20 Days in Mariupol

Mstyslav Chernov's 20 Days in Mariupol won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2024, becoming Ukraine's first ever Oscar. It also won the BAFTA, the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service journalism (jointly with Chernov's Associated Press colleagues), and a Sundance audience award. Chernov dedicated the win to the people of Mariupol — and, in his acceptance speech, said he wished his film had never had to be made.

When Russia's full-scale invasion began in February 2022, Chernov, photojournalist Evgeniy Maloletka and producer Vasilisa Stepanenko were the last international press team inside the besieged port city. The film is constructed almost entirely from their AP wire footage during a three-week siege — children dying in a maternity hospital strike, mass graves dug in courtyards, the destruction of the Drama Theatre, residents queueing for water as artillery shells fall around them. Chernov narrates in a Ukrainian voice-over that turns the film, against the conventions of objective journalism, into a survivor's testimony.

The film operates simultaneously as international war reporting and personal testament. Several sequences became globally consequential — the maternity-hospital images shaped the early international response to the invasion. The film's existence required Chernov and his team to smuggle hard drives past Russian checkpoints — a logistical context that gives every frame the weight of evidence preserved against the odds.