Ukrainian director and journalist Mstyslav Chernov has returned to Sundance Film Festival with his follow-up to 20 Days in Mariupol, which won over Sundance in 2023 and ultimately went on to win the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature. 2000 Meters to Andriivka, his new documentary has now won him the Directing Award. This new chapter is no less intense, no less difficult to watch. It throws the viewer into a first-person documentation of Ukrainian soldiers taking careful steps towards a village in order to free it from Russian occupation. (Also read: André is an Idiot review: A brilliant, life-affirming documentary of a man battling cancer)
The premise
In 2000 Meters to Andriivka, we are thrust directly into the litter, the dirt and absolute horrors of the soldiers strategizing their next move in the hidden trenches through their helmet camera footage. Along with journalist colleague Alex Babenko, Chernov follows these soldiers as they take orders, hide in the ground, and plan their next step as explosions go off continuously in the background. Here too, Chernov’s cold and fuss-free voiceover informs the viewer where they are headed. Surrounded by mines and accessible only through a tiny sliver patch of land, there lies the village of Andriivka, Ukraine.
The mission? The soldiers will have to raise the Ukrainian flag in the act of displaying power by taking this small trek, where every step is a potential deathtrap. It sounds ludicrous from the outside but everything’s fair in war, and so they must accomplish this goal. “So what are we fighting for?” asks Chernov. “To rebuild it,” says a soldier. Without a reason, there will be no way out. There is no other choice.
What works
Nightmarish and incredibly visceral, 2000 Meters to Andriivka is unflinching in its depiction of the horrors of war. The banality of this mission is a subtext that Chernov does not want to highlight. In fact, it does not need to be stated out, as lives of these brave soldiers are risked for the sake of this mission. Which is shocking and unbelievable at times. During a hide-out, when they are preparing for their next move, Chernov asks some of these young men how they became soldiers. The answers are matter-of-fact in their embedded optimism. The voiceover will then inform, in crushing existential sadness, that this soldier will not be found after the next mission.
The sense of ennui which develops as the soldiers advance towards Andriivka provides this documentation its vital emotional pull. Chernov’s commitment to bring the ugly, unvarnished truth is extraordinary. The images and sounds burn themselves in memory. That being said, I was wary of some of the additional music by Sam Slater that underscores the scenes many a times. It tends to distill a specific sort of reaction that certainly could have been kept in check.
2000 Meters to Andriivka is a revelatory and incredibly humane portrait of the devastation and brutality of war. There’s no silver lining in the way some of these men die. There can’t be. Chernov informs what he sees, what he knows to be true. And so, we must witness it too.
Santanu Das is covering Sundance Film Festival 2025 as part of the accredited press.