A still from 2000 Meters to Andriivka by Mstyslav Chernov, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Mstyslav Chernov
AP journalist Mstyslav Chernov filmed “20 Days in Mariupol” two years ago. His first documentary showing the Russian invasion of Mariupol won the Oscar as Best Documentary of the year at the 2024 Academy Awards.
At Sundance this year the 97-minute documentary “2000 Meters to Andriivka” embeds Chernov and Cinematographer Alex Babenko with troops advancing approximately one mile to the embattled town of Andriivka in Ukraine. Andriivka is representative of so many Ukrainian towns and villages seized by Russian troops. Onscreen, as they get closer to the town, the distance still to be traveled is shown in a kind of count-down fashion.
THE GOAL
The Russians have mined each of the sides of a forested area, the Zhyzhky forest, where the enemy has dug in. If the 93rd brigade can make its way to the town, it will help cut the Russian supply line to the Russian-occupied city of Bakhmut. The Zhyzhky forest has had three previous Ukrainian attempts to make it to Andriivka, in June, July and August, only to see the front line of brave Ukrainian soldiers mowed down by Russian troops.
The goal? “If we are lucky, we’ll get there and see the raising of the Ukrainian flag.”
They do get there, but the town is totally destroyed.
THE FIGHTERS
The bravery of the Ukrainian men is admirable, but it all seems so futile.
Mstyslav Chernov, director of 2000 Meters to Andriivka, an official selection of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute | photo by Jeff Vespa
Chernov has conversations with individual fighters—Freak, Kavun, Gagarin—and we see bodies littered everywhere on the hellscape that was once a forest leading towards the small village. The village of Andriivka, itself, when they finally reach it, is as decimated as the Gaza Strip. There really isn’t a building, as such, to hang a flag on or over. When Chernov is asked during the audience Q&A how things changed after the men reached Andriivka and raised the Ukrainian flag, he said, “It became sort of anti-climactic and climactic.” There is a small moment of humanity when one of the Ukrainian fighters finds a small kitten and smuggles it out with him.
FREAK ET. AL.
Freak is one of the fighters we get to know. He is only 22 years old and talks about his previous time at university. He says his plan is to “go in with the thought that I’m going to stay alive.” (Freak is injured 6 months later and his body is never recovered.)
A 46-year old military policeman (and a grandfather) who volunteered to defend Ukraine says that he should not be made out to be a hero. “I haven’t done anything heroic , yet here I am on camera. It shouldn’t be like that. There are those who have done so much.” He worries that his wife back home won’t have clean water and that he didn’t fix the toilet well enough before he left for war.
Gagarin is shot and falls, onscreen. (Later, the soldier who held Gagarin’s hand as he died, will also be killed in a drone strike in his village). Gagarin’s funeral is the 56th funeral in his small town. The town turns out en masse and there is much mourning and crying. One of the mourners says, “We are burying our children. Women bury their husbands. Our boys still had everything ahead of them. They could have been entrepreneurs, agriculturists. When the time came, they took up arms to defend us.”
CONCLUSION
Where “20 Days in Mariupol” was optimistic, now, with a new administration in place, one that seems much less interested in supporting Ukraine in its struggle against Russia (and much friendlier towards Putin), the counter-offensive does not seem to be viable. Russia now controls abut 20% of Ukraine as of January, 2025.
Director Chernov said, “I don’t want to to speak to any of my relatives right now, because I would want to tell them that everything is okay and it’s not.”
I felt depressed after the November presidential election and on January 20th. I’m even more depressed after viewing this remarkable film about what is actually happening in Ukraine. It should be seen in a double viewing with another remarkable Sundance film, “Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” which depicts how Russian schools are being told to brainwash students and turn them into soldiers at increasingly young ages.
