20 days in Mariupol, the harsh experience of a group of Ukrainian journalists from the AP agency trapped in the besieged port city finally taken by the Russians, won the Oscar for best documentary and gave rise to an exciting speech from its director. the Ukrainian Mstyslav Chernov. Chernov has stressed that it is “the first Oscar in the history of Ukraine and it is an honor, but I am probably the first director on this stage to say that I wish I had never made this film.”
“I would like to exchange this Oscar because Russia would never have attacked Ukraine, taken our cities and killed thousands of my compatriots. I cannot change the past but together we can all make sure that the truth prevails and that the people of Mariupol, those who gave their lives, never forget. Because cinema creates memories and memories create history. Thank you all. Long live Ukraine.”
20 Days in Mariupol shows how journalists trapped in the besieged city struggle to document the atrocities of the Russian invasion as the only international reporters remaining in the city, capturing images that will define the war, from dying children to graves full of bodies or the bombing of a hospital maternity ward.
The other candidates for the award were the poetry and pain of The Infinite Memory, the documentary about Alzheimer’s by the Chilean Maite Alberdi or the Tunisian The Four Daughters, which had won the Golden Globe in the same category with the story of a woman, two of whose daughters join the Islamist militias. The other two nominees were Bobi Wine: People’s President, about the pop star’s attempt to be president of Uganda against the current authoritarian government, and director Nisha Pahuja’s To Kill a Tiger, the story of a family struggling for justice after the mass rape of his teenage daughter.