The 20 Days in Mariupol film will represent Ukraine at the 2024 Oscars. The picture won the national selection, the Ukrainian Oscar Committee announced.
“Five films participated in the national selection: 20 Days in Mariupol by Mstyslav Chernov, Iron Butterflies by Roman Liubyi, Pamfir by Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk, Boney Piles by Taras Tomenko and SHTTL by Adrien Walter,” the committee reported.
The film will compete for first place in the Best International Feature Film category. Previously, the film and its author have already won several cinematographic and journalistic awards.
20 Days in Mariupol is a documentary about the Russian attack on Mariupol on February 24, 2022. In March 2022, Mstyslav Chernov, together with photographer Evgeniy Maloletka and producer and journalist Vasilisa Stepanenko, were in Mariupol, where for 20 days they filmed destruction, shelling, the work of doctors, and numerous victims among civilians.
“The film shows the beginning of a full-scale invasion, the bombing of a maternity hospital and the rescue of the author of the film and his colleagues from the Associated Press from a city surrounded by Russian troops,” the Ukrainian Film Academy said.
The movie was released in Ukraine on August 31 and has already become the most visited documentary film, according to Arthouse Traffic film distributor. In addition, in January, the project received the prize of audience sympathy at the Sundance independent film festival in the USA.
