Best Documentary Oscar awarded to 20 Days in Mariupol

The Ukrainian film 20 Days in Mariupol, which was shot over three weeks in the besieged port city at the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, won the Oscar for Best Documentary at the Academy Awards in Los Angeles on Sunday.

Directed by Mstyslav Chernov, whose Associated Press team was the last contingent of journalists from an international outlet to remain in Mariupol as Russian forces encircled the city in spring 2022, the documentary is the first Ukrainian film ever to win an Academy Award.

In his acceptance speech, Chernov described the “honour” he felt at being awarded the Oscar, but said he would “probably be the first director on this stage to say that I wish I had never made this film”.

Chernov said he wished he could exchange the award for “Russia never attacking Ukraine and never occupying our cities”, and that he would “give up all the recognition for Russia not killing tens of thousands of my fellow Ukrainians”.

“I wish for them to release all the hostages, all the soldiers who are protecting their lands, all the civilians who are now in their jails”, Chernov continued, before calling on those present to “make sure the history record is set straight, that the truth will prevail and that the people of Mariupol and those who gave their lives will never be forgotten”.

Several days before the Oscar ceremony, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky held a video conference with Chernov, thanking him and his team for their “fearless and tireless efforts” in making a “very important film for exposing Russian atrocities against our people to the entire world”.

The ceremony’s In Memoriam segment also paid tribute to the late Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who was the focus of director Daniel Roher’s film Navalny, which won the Oscar for Best Documentary in 2023. In his acceptance speech last year, Roher had called his film a “precursor” to the “brutal war” in Ukraine.