A harrowing new documentary from Mstyslav Chernov on Ukraine’s ailing counteroffensive in opposition to the Russian invasion introduced tears and a standing ovation to the Sundance movie competition, two years after the film-maker premiered 20 Days in Mariupol, his Oscar-winning account of the siege’s first weeks.
In 2000 Meters from Andriivka, Chernov is as soon as once more beside fellow Ukrainians amid Russian assaults. However whereas 20 Days in Mariupol targeted totally on civilians killed, maimed or mourning through the preliminary Russian invasion in 2022, Andriivka embeds with Ukrainian troopers through the navy’s counteroffensive within the east all through 2023, at a time when there was no different impartial reporting from the battle’s frontlines.
The counteroffensive largely didn’t considerably push – again Russian troops, as each side confronted heavy losses which are tough to precisely estimate, not to mention perceive; as of October 2024, about 115,000 Russians had been killed and 500,000 wounded because the begin of the full-scale invasion, whereas impartial assessments put the Ukrainian losses at someplace between 62,000 and 100,000.
“I really need these numbers – these casualties, the kilometers, miles which are simply statistics – I need these names which are simply names on a map to have which means to them. And that’s why this movie exists,” mentioned Chernov whereas introducing the venture on the Utah-based movie competition.
The 106-minute movie, an Related Press and PBS Frontline co-production, presents “a narrative of individuals combating for his or her land”, he says in voiceover after the opening scene. That scene, like a number of others, places the viewer in first-person, real-time battle filmed via a soldier’s helmet digital camera, as he and his comrades are bombarded by Russian shells in a graveyard of bushes.
As along with his prior movie on the battle, 2000 Meters from Andriivka proceeds in numerical chapters, as Ukraine’s third assault brigade advances, meter by meter over a number of weeks, via a slim strip of forest sandwiched between two minefields and resulting in the village of Andriivka; reclaiming the one-street city would lower off a key Russian provide line outdoors the jap metropolis of Bakhmut. The gap is seemingly brief – 2km, 1.25 miles, a two-minute drive, a 10-minute run. “However right here, time doesn’t matter. Distance does,” says Chernov in voiceover.
The movie cuts between troopers’ helmet-cam footage of the arduous, lethal advance – the strip is occupied by Russian snipers in dugouts, and always in danger from artillery fireplace – and Chernov’s journey with the unit throughout its ultimate advance in September 2023. Getting into the 2km strip of forest – largely splintered bushes, foxholes and navy particles – is like “touchdown on a planet the place all the things is attempting to kill you”, says Chernov in voiceover. “Nevertheless it’s not one other planet. It’s the center of Europe.”
Chernov started engaged on the venture as he was screening the acclaimed 20 Days in Mariupol around the globe, returning to Ukraine amid journey to fulfill with the brigade because the counteroffensive settled right into a gradual, bitter, deadly stalemate. “Issues had been already not going nicely” with the counteroffensive by the point he began filming, Chernov mentioned throughout a Q&A following the documentary’s premiere in Park Metropolis.
The venture modified considerably because the counteroffensive superior and the battle floor on, claiming increasingly more lives. “This movie has modified its which means many instances whereas we had been making it, as a result of as we had been making it, increasingly more of the individuals we knew had been dying,” mentioned Chernov. Of the 4 brigade members he initially met with to view their helmet-camera footage, just one stays alive.
2000 Meters from Andriivka is in the end a distressing and deeply disconsolate portrait of a pyrrhic victory – by the point the third assault brigade “liberates” Andriivka, the village is nothing however rubble, devoid of residents or perhaps a place to hold the Ukrainian flag. “All that’s left of it’s a identify,” says Chernov within the movie, earlier than voicing a longstanding worry: “The longer the battle goes on, the much less individuals will care about it.”
The Ukrainian counteroffensive itself was largely a failed goal; Russia has retaken a lot of the gained territory, together with what’s left of Andriivka in Might 2024. As of January 2025, the movie notes, Russia managed practically 20% of Ukraine. The battle continues, nearing the three-year mark of the Russian invasion with no signal of both the Kremlin relenting or Ukraine surrendering. It’s a battle of attrition claiming troopers at a price unseen in Europe because the second world battle.
In the course of the Park Metropolis screening, Chernov resisted any straightforward messages or proclamations, insisting the movie does the identical, present as an alternative as a doc of battle and of Ukrainian resistance. “I don’t like messages. I don’t like imperatives. I don’t like moralizing individuals. I actually, actually like questions,” he mentioned in response to an viewers query. “What was necessary to me is … that names matter. They need to be remembered. That is a part of our historical past – each individual, each identify issues. That’s actually what I need. Every thing else is a query.”
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