Ivan Radford | On 13, Mar 2024

Director: Mstyslav Chernov
Cast: Mstyslav Chernov
Certificate: 18

When confronted with horrific atrocities, people will do one of two things: turn away or keep looking. 20 Days in Mariupol is a harrowing documentary that follows Ukrainian journalists in the titular city who dare to keep the camera rolling to show the conflict following Russia’s invasion.

Mstyslav Chernov was working for the Associated Press in February 2024, when the invasion began. A seasoned journalist used to covering conflict, what’s striking is how much he’s surprised by the scale and intensity of Russia’s operation – at first, he and his colleagues assure citizens that civilians and residential buildings won’t be targeted. Then, when they are, they are shocked and apologetic amid a growing wave of innocent casualties. All the while, they don’t stop filming.

Chernov makes his feature directorial debut here, and presents the edited footage with a powerful simplicity – he understands all too well the impact an image can have. Narrating calmly each day’s segment of recording, his matter-of-fact voice contrasts strikingly with the chaos and devastation unfolding with urgency in front of us. Bullets fire perilously close to the journalists and aerial bombardments feel relentless. Inside buildings, they tape up mirrors to reduce the number of fragments an explosion would cause. Still, they keep filming.

We take some very short breaks away from the on-the-ground video to give us a sense of context amid the confusion – news reports from Russia attempt to dismiss their footage as fake and performed by actors. But that only reinforces the importance of what Chernov and his colleagues are doing, and there’s a grim tension to their desperate efforts to find a wifi signal amid the rubble to share their footage – even if that means sharing it in 10-second clips on a mobile phone. The importance and value of truth and documentary-making in a digital age of disinformation has rarely been so viscerally demonstrated. In the middle of emergency surgery, doctors pause to tell them to keep filming. Why? Because the world needs to see.

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