Ukrainian film 20 Days in Mariupol nominated for Oscar 2024

The information was posted on the official website of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

The most prestigious award in US cinema has announced the final lists of nominees. The Ukrainian film 20 Days in Mariupol was nominated for Best Feature Documentary. This is the second time in history that a Ukrainian film has been nominated for an Oscar. Again, it is a documentary about war.

The eyewitness documentary 20 Days in Mariupol by Mstyslav Chernov tells the story of the brutal siege of the Ukrainian port city by the Russian criminal army from February to May 2022, which resulted in the deaths of more than 20,000 people. Photographer Yevhen Malolietka and producer Vasylisa Stepanenko worked on the film together with Chernov. The film shows the beginning of the full-scale invasion, the bombing of the maternity hospital, and the rescue of the author and his colleagues from the Associated Press from the city surrounded by Russian troops.

The Ukrainian film will compete in the nomination with the Ugandan-British-American film Bobi Wine: The People's President, the Chilean film The Eternal Memory, the French-Tunisian-German-Saudi co-production Four Daughters and the Canadian documentary To Kill a Tiger.

The ceremony will be held on March 10.

Mstyslav Chernov's documentary 20 Days in Mariupol was ranked 4th in the list of best films in the UK and 6th in the US by The Guardian.

IndieWire, a publication specializing in the film industry and film reviews, also named the best feature films and documentaries of 2023. It gathered the opinions of 158 film critics from around the world, and 20 Days in Mariupol was named one of the top 10 best documentaries of the year.

In November, Mstyslav Chernov's Ukrainian documentary 20 Days in Mariupol won the Audience Award at the IDFA 2023 International Documentary Film Festival in Amsterdam.

The film also received two nominations for the British BAFTA Awards - Best Documentary and Best Foreign Language Film.