20 Days in Mariupol wins BAFTA award for best documentary

The film 20 Days in Mariupol by Mstyslav Chernov has won Best Documentary at the BAFTA Awards. Source: Suspilne. Culture, referring to the BAFTA Awards website

Details: Mstyslav Chernov took to the stage to receive the award, as well as producer Vasylisa Stepanenko, who, together with Chernov and photojournalist Evgeniy Maloletka, worked in besieged Mariupol in 2022.

Film producers Michelle Misner and Raney Aronson-Rath were also on stage. The film was also nominated for Best Film not in the English Language. However, the winner in this category was Jonathan Glazer's The Zone of Interest, to be released in Ukraine on 22 February, which also won awards for Sound and Outstanding British Film.

The BAFTAs are annual awards given by the British Academy of Film and Television Arts - the UK's equivalent of the Oscars. 20 Days in Mariupol has also been Oscar-nominated for Best Documentary. The awards ceremony will take place on the night of 10 March.

20 Days in Mariupol tells the story of the early weeks of the fighting in Mariupol, Donetsk Oblast, during Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The film was created by director and photographer Mstyslav Chernov, photographer Evgeniy Maloletka, and producer and journalist Vasylisa Stepanenko. They were the last journalists to cover the beginning of Russia's destruction of Mariupol, and all three won the Pulitzer Prize for their work.

The film was the highest-grossing documentary in Ukraine last year, earning UAH 500,000 (roughly US£13,100) in its opening weekend alone.

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