’20 Days in Mariupol’ Director Was Initially Worried the Grotesque Injustice He Captured in Ukraine Would Scare Away Audiences

On the evening of Feb. 23, 2022, a small team of AP correspondents including Mstyslav Chernov headed to Mariupol. They pulled into the Ukrainian port city at 3:30 a.m. Russia invaded Mariupol one hour later.

As the only international reporters in the city, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist and his team captured what later became defining images of the war: dying children, mass graves, and the bombing of a maternity hospital.

Chernov, Vasilisa Stepanenko and Evgeniy Maloletka initially went to Mariupol to capture what they thought would be news segments. But after escaping the city, Chernov knew that he needed to take the harrowing footage he and his team had captured and make a documentary. The result is 20 Days in Mariupol, a 94-minute film that is both devastating and riveting. Scenes include a mother weeping over the body of her four-year-old, who died from shelling wounds, as well as a father crying that his teenage sons legs were torn off by a bomb while playing soccer outside a school.

Following its Sundance premiere, the film won the World Cinema Documentary Audience Award.PBS Distribution is releasing the docu in theaters on July14, which will be followed by a Frontline broadcast.

Variety spoke to Chernov about his decision to turn his footage into a feature length film, audience reactions to the doc and whether or not Russians will watch it.

When you first went to Mariupol in February 2022, you intended to make short video segments for the AP. When did you decide that you needed to make a feature doc?

I started realizing that there was a necessity to do something bigger than just news. I realized that there was a necessity to film every single moment because its so important and there wasnt anybody but us to do that. So, I knew that every single moment recorded in Mariupol was worth its weight in gold for future generations, for journalism, for maybe potential war crimes trials and so on and so forth.

You took 30 hours of footage and made it into a 94 minute documentary. How challenging was that?

The big challenge was to find the right tone. Not to make it too personal. Not to make it too generic. Not to make it too emotional. But at the same time we wanted to keep the emotional connection with the audience. So, finding the right tone was the first step to telling this story accurately.

You and your teams on-the-ground reportage reveal some very grim situations and numerous civilian deaths. As Varietys Dennis Harvey said, Its bleak but essential viewing. Was there ever any concern during the edit that people wouldnt watch the film due to all the violence and death?

Yes. We wanted to make sure that we didnt sanitize the footage and (we wanted to) bring the audience all the way into the story. But at the same time we did not want to push the audience away, because at certain moments it can be overwhelming and very hard to watch. That was my personal worry. When the film was opening at the Sundance and we went there, I was watching the audience. I was watching their responses. I didnt know how its going to go. Later on, when we won the World Cinema Documentary audience award, that was a huge surprise for me because I thought, Its too hard (of a topic). But apparently it was just right.

I found myself enraged at the end of the film due to the grotesque injustice of the situation. Have you found anger to be a common response to the doc?

There have been various responses, and anger is one of them. Its a very natural human response, but also there is a lot of hope. I think that there is a hope in the film, regardless of the tragedies that are unfolding. Thats what I hear from the audience. The people who survived give audiences hope and they want to act on what they have just seen.

Do you think Russians will ever see the film?

I know that at some point it will be very important for Russians who want to understand what was happening. For Ukrainians this film will be very important too, because its part of the history of the country. Mariupol is a symbol. Its more than just a (city) that was sieged.