20 Days in Mariupol

Available on 4OD and Dogwoof

Mstyslav Chernov’s Academy Award winning documentary offers a distressing and unflinching look into the early throes of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, specifically its siege and eventual capture of the strategic port city of Mariupol. Chernov, a respected war correspondent, gathered the footage for 20 Days in Mariupol on the ground alongside colleagues from the Associated Press (AP) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) while covering the first 20 days of the incursion, sending material from the only place in the city where an online connection remained.

As one might expect, the film is a difficult watch that is replete with images that are almost too harrowing to conceive. Both Chernov and his interviewees are at pains to demonstrate the scale of this conflict and the senseless loss of life it has caused, going as far to air scenes as heartbreaking as the death of an infant and the construction and filling of mass graves.

At times, I questioned whether it was appropriate for such tragedies to be made available for public consumption, but Chernov counterbalances this by including excerpts from Russian news coverage of the conflict which denies wrongdoing and denounces the work of AP, PBS, and other such outlets as Western propaganda.

In that sense, the power of 20 Days in Mariupol can be found in how it reinforces the importance of the work of correspondents such as Chernov, particularly in the disinformation age. AP was the first to document Russia’s bombing of a Mariupol maternity hospital - a war crime which they denied committing - and this and other such footage fully exposes the callousness of Vladimir Putin’s operation.

Indeed, in light of the autocrat’s latest election victory, brave and dissenting voices such as Chernov and Yulia Navalnaya are more essential than ever. You won’t want to revisit 20 Days in Mariupol, but you’ll be more enlightened for having seen it.