Whisper House Press

Film Title: 2,000 Meters to Andriivka / 2000 метрів до Андріївки

Director: Mstyslav Chernov

Release Date (USA, Sundance): January 23, 2025

Awards (as of 2/7/25): Winner: Director (in World Cinema Documentary category); Nominated: Grand Jury Prize (in World Cinema Documentary category)

Capone’s Rating: 5⭐ out of 5⭐

Review Content Warning: scenes of death and war described in detail

2,000 Meters to Andriivka is upsetting because the reality it depicts so clearly is upsetting. That world—the front lines of Ukrainian soldiers defending against the continued Russian invasion—is not imaginary. The Oscar-winning director of 20 Days in Mariupol has, between stops promoting that first film, gathered another terrifying assemblage of footage from the battlefield. Chernov remarked during Q&A upon the jarring experience of traveling from e.g. Spain or France to the killing fields of eastern Ukraine to meet with the soldiers whose helmet cams he used, some of whom would be alive at one visit and who’d be mourned over by his fellows and family the next.

This movie premiered at Sundance Film Festival, where audiences in comfortable clothing and snuggled into plush seats pondered over the meaning of all this death at great remove—well over 2,000 miles from the battlefield. Among them, my own senses were overwhelemed by the explosions, screaming projectiles, and on-camera deaths. As with 20 Days, I was frequently overcome with emotion, as it was impossible to forget that all I was seeing was real. The soldiers on camera—of the Kraken company, I believe—were making a push into a battered town at the end of a two-kilometer stretch of narrow forest surrounded by pockmarked minefields reminiscent of photos and fictional depictions I’ve seen in my years teaching the history of World War One and its no man’s lands.

War has once again changed, this time transformed through the use of suicide drones and observation UAVs. “The motherfuckers are twelve meters in front of you,” the call from the unit’s forward operating base might report. “There’s two of them in that foxhole. Fuck them up. Use grenades.” And audiences follow the team as the arial drone footage tracks them advancing on the specified crater, yelling, “You motherfuckers put your hands up and we won’t shoot you,” before ducking suddenly to avoid rounds demolishing trees and exploding dirt mounds around them. And then they throw a grenade. Or one of the Ukrainians would be shot. Or we’d see the helmet-cam angle on a Russian corpse facedown underfoot.

This is what happened as Ukrainian troops slowly but surely pushed toward Andriivka, a town of rubble and of strategic and symbolic importance. We want them to expel the invaders. We feel for them.

I tell my students: Propaganda gets a bad rep. It isn’t necessarily false. In fact, the most effective propaganda comprises truth, set out a certain way, to elicit specific feelings. This film will be categorized by Russian state media as propaganda, and they won’t be wrong. It’s showing what’s really happening: Young soldiers in an embattled nation are fighting to their deaths to expel imperialistic invaders. It’s happening, and it’s upsetting. This film allows us to empathize directly with those fighters’ devotion to their cause, their defense of their nation. As far as movies go, it’s going to be impossible for a critic judging in good faith to find fault in this one.

Five stars. Fuck the motherfuckers.