The film’s director spoke candidly, admitting the hardship of filming the project. In Mariupol, Mstyslav Chernov, a Ukrainian photographer, journalist, and writer, reflects on how cinema can preserve truth even as history is written by others. Standing at the Dolby Theatre, he emphasized that while history cannot be rewritten, memory can be kept alive and the people of Mariupol who sacrificed so much are not forgotten. Cinema, he said, can create lasting memories for audiences around the world. (Attribution: Chernov interview, award ceremony)
Initial footage from the siege captures a city under siege through the window of a ruined building. The shots were produced by a compact team led by Chernov, with cameras kept steady as the streets reveal the presence of tanks bearing the famous symbol on their armor. When one tank rotates its cannon toward the camera’s vantage point, the frame ends on a note of peril, then returns to the outset of the conflict, recalling the first hours of Russia’s assault on the city. The film invites viewers to watch a stark record of those days. (Attribution: frontline footage)
Entitled 20 Days in Mariupol, the documentary arrived at Sundance to resound with audiences, earning the festival’s audience award and earning nominations in the documentary category for the Academy Awards. The work centers on Chernov, a Ukrainian filmmaker whose career spans photojournalism, war reporting, and literary projects, including firsthand coverage of the Syrian and Iraqi conflicts, the 2014 Maidan uprising, and the Donbas crisis. Before the night’s fighting began, he journeyed to Mariupol to document what unfolded in the early days of the siege. For his reporting, he has received the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, among other honors. (Attribution: Sundance premiere, award recognitions)
Many of the documentary’s images have circulated on world television, countering misinformation that civilians and targets in the city were not attacked. In a moment illustrating global political rhetoric, a Russian ambassador publicly challenged the authenticity of the footage, dismissing it as fake. The documentary presents stark, unedited realities: four-year-old girls in a hospital operating room, women sheltering in a corridor during bombardment, and pregnant women being evacuated from a burning pediatric center following repeated assaults on civilian sites. When a picture speaks as loudly as a thousand words, this film registers as one of the most unflinching chronicles of the period. (Attribution: international reporting, official responses)
Given the material’s intensity, Chernov chose a feature-length format. The production was co-published with The Associated Press, a collaboration reflecting the director’s long-standing ties to the organization. After the tense moment when a tank points toward the crew, the narrative moves back to February 24, 2022, the siege’s first day. Streets are sparse, sound is hushed, and Chernov notes that wars often begin with silence before explosions. The documentary follows the first 20 days of indiscriminate attacks, chronicling the city’s fall to Russian forces on the 86th day of the campaign. (Attribution: AP collaboration, timeline)
Situated in southern Ukraine, about 50 kilometers from Russia and serving as a gateway to Crimea, Mariupol is an industrial hub with a large port. The city’s strategic value made it a primary target in the invasion, a reality the film portrays through images that reveal an unequal struggle. The documentary engages with the idea that war histories carry implicit biases, and Chernov’s work is presented as a counterpoint to propaganda, aiming to document the human realities without simplifying the narrative into a single moral frame. (Attribution: regional analysis, wartime documentation)
Viewers witness civilians seeking shelter as the thunder of artillery echoes: people crowd into a gym, mirrors are taped in shards to reduce danger, and nurses attempt to resuscitate a fragile child as a doctor requests a shot that would let the world see the girl’s eyes. The film also captures a father cradling his dying son on a stretcher, the trauma at a birthing center, and the surreal moment when a bystander questions why a thief took a football amid the chaos. These sequences illustrate the irrationalities of war in a direct, unvarnished way. (Attribution: on-location testimonies)
One physician’s reflection—that war is like an X-ray that exposes the inner workings of humanity—frames the documentary’s broader scope. It portrays soldiers, survivors, looters, and the officials who ordered the assault while denying war crimes despite the evidence captured on camera. (Attribution: expert testimony)