A new heartbreaking documentary by Mstyslav Chernov on the sick counter-offensive of Ukraine against the Russian invasion provoked tears and a standing ovation at the Sundance Film Festival, two years after the creation of 20-day cinema films in Mariupol, his Story oscillates from the first week of the headquarters of the Siege.
In 2000 meters from Andriivka, Chernov was once again next to Ukrainian colleagues in the middle of Russian attacks. But while 20 days in Mariupol focused mainly on civilians killed, mutilated or mourning during the Russian initial invasion in 2022, Andriivka bowed with Ukrainian soldiers during the counter-offensive soldiers in the east Throughout 2023, at a time when there were no other independent relationships of the fronts of war.
The counter -offensive failed to repel significantly – the Russian troops, because the two parties faced heavy losses difficult to estimate with precision, and even less to understand; In October 2024, around 115,000 Russians had been killed and 500,000 wounded since the start of the large -scale invasion, while independent assessments put Ukrainian losses somewhere between 62,000 and 100,000.
“I really want these figures – these victims, the kilometers, the kilometers which are only statistics – I want these names which are only names on a card to have a meaning for them. And that is why this film exists, ”said Chernov while presenting the project at the UTAH -based film festival.
The 106-minute film, a first-line co-production of Associated Press and PBS, presents “a story of people who fight for their land,” he said in voiceover after the opening scene. This scene, like several others, puts the spectator in the war in the first person and in real time filmed by the helmet of a soldier, while he and his comrades are bombed by Russian shells in a cemetery of trees.
As with his previous film on the conflict, 2000 meters from Andriivka take place in digital chapters, while the third Ukrainian assault brigade is advancing, the meter per meter over several weeks, through a narrow strip of sandwich forest between two Mine fields and leading to the village of Andriivka; The recovery of the city to a street would make a key Russian supply line outside the eastern city of Bakhmut. The distance is apparently short – 2 km, 1.25 miles, a two -minute journey, a 10 -minute race. “But here, time does not matter. The distance does it, ”explains Chernov in voiceover.
The film cuts the helmets of helmets of the soldiers of the arduous and fatal advance – the band is occupied by Russian elite shooters in canoes, and constantly at risk of artillery fire – and the journey of Chernov with The unit during its last advance in September 2023. The 2 km forest band – mainly burst trees, fox holes and military debris – is like “landing on a planet where everything is trying to kill you”, explains Chernov in voiceover. “But this is not another planet. It is the middle of Europe.
Chernov began working on the project as he selected the 20 days acclaimed in Mariupol in the world, returning to Ukraine in the middle of travel to meet the brigade while the counter-offensive settled in a slow, bitter and bitter dead end and fatal. “Things were not going well” with the counter-offensive when he started to film, said Chernov during a question-and-more session after the first of the documentary in Park City.
The project has changed considerably as the counter-offensive advanced and the war field, claiming more and more lives. “This film has changed its meaning several times while we did, because as we did, more and more people we knew were dying,” said Chernov. Of the four members of the brigade which he initially met to see their images of helmet camera, only one remains alive.
2000 meters of Andriivka is ultimately a painful and profoundly contributing portrait of a Pyrrhic victory – when the third assault brigade “released” Andriivka, the village is only rubble, devoid of residents or even a place To hang the Ukrainian flag. “Everything left is a name,” explains Chernov in the film, before expressing a longtime fear: “the longer the war, the less people will care.”
The Ukrainian counter-offensive itself was largely a failed objective; Russia took over a large part of the territory won, including what remains of Andriivka in May 2024. In January 2025, noted the film, Russia controlled almost 20% of Ukraine. The war continues, approaching the three -year brand of the Russian invasion without any signs of the Kremlin Cedant or Ukrainian surrender. It is a war of attrition claiming soldiers at an invisible rate in Europe since the Second World War.
During the projection of Park City, Chernov resisted all easy messages or proclamations, insisting that the film does the same, existing instead as a Ukrainian war and resistance document. “I don’t like messages. I don’t like imperatives. I don’t like people’s moralization. I really like, really the questions, “he said in response to a question from the public. “What was important to me is … that names count. They should be recalled. This is part of our history – each person, each name counts. That’s really what I want. Everything else is a question.
