"Every piece of land is someone's blood and life": Chernov presents 2,000 Meters to Andriivka at Cannes

Mstyslav Chernov's team shared the information with Espreso.

On Tuesday, May 13, the opening day of the 78th Cannes Film Festival, a special program dedicated to Ukraine took place for the first time.

The film festival, the Cannes City Hall, and official event partners France Télévisions and Brut presented three films about the war in Ukraine at the Festival Palace, the main venue of the event. As the organizers noted, these films "gave a voice to those who testify to the current realities and stand up for the truth."

The audience first saw the French film Zelensky by Yves Jeuland, Lisa Vapné and Ariane Chemin, followed by the French-Ukrainian film Notre Guerre (Our War) by Bernard-Henri Lévy and Marc Roussel.

Ukraine Day concluded with the screening of Mstyslav Chernov's new feature film 2,000 Meters to Andriivka. The film has already won the Best Director award at the Sundance Film Festival, become one of the winners at the CPH:DOX Copenhagen International Documentary Film Festival, and was also showcased with a special screening at the Hot Docs Festival in Toronto.

Chernov personally presented the film. In his speech, the director first thanked the Ukrainian military.

"It is an honor for me to represent Ukraine alongside talented Ukrainian and French filmmakers at the Cannes Film Festival. In these days, when peace negotiations are taking place, when the future of Ukraine and its land are being discussed, I would like the world to remember that every meter, every inch of this land is someone’s blood and life. This is what 2,000 Meters to Andriivka is about. It’s about the land and the soldiers who defend it. About those who have fallen and those who continue to fight," emphasized Chernov.

2,000 Meters to Andriivka is the second feature film by Ukrainian director Mstyslav Chernov, an Oscar-winning journalist for the Associated Press, recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, the Directors Guild of America, the U.S. Producers Guild, BAFTA, and the Royal Television Society Television Journalism Awards, about the Russian-Ukrainian war.

The film tells the story of the liberation of the village of Andriivka near Bakhmut by the Ukrainian Armed Forces, specifically the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade. While in 20 Days in Mariupol the director offered viewers an emotional and painful look at the early days of the Russian invasion and its impact on the civilian population, in this new film, Chernov and his colleague, Associated Press photographer Oleksandr Babenko, focus their cameras on the Ukrainian soldiers, capturing the harrowing life in the trenches.

During the difficult counteroffensive of 2023, the journalists follow the soldiers of the 3rd Separate Assault Brigade as they inch forward, meter by meter, through a narrow grove to liberate the village of Andriivka, which had been occupied by Russian forces and surrounded by mines.

Filming of the movie began in September 2023, and the entire production took nearly 1.5 years. In addition to Chernov and Babenko, producers Michelle Mizner and Raney Aronson-Rath worked on the film, with Mizner also handling the editing. The music for the film was composed by two-time Grammy Award winner, composer, and music producer Sam Slater (Chernobyl, Joker).

Like the previous film, 2,000 Meters to Andriivka is part of a collaboration between FRONTLINE and the Associated Press, exploring the Russian war against Ukraine.

• The rights for the international distribution of Mstyslav Chernov's new film 2,000 Meters to Andriivka were acquired by the British company Dogwoof.
• This is the second festival and second award for the film. The first, for Best Direction, was won in January 2025 at the Sundance Film Festival.
• At the CPH:DOX film festival in Copenhagen, the documentary Tesla Files was also shown. The film, based on data leaked by an employee from Norway, exposes the inner workings of Tesla and explores the connection between Elon Musk’s empire and political powers.