Global Courant 2023-04-28 18:38:00
A new documentary about the early days of the Russian invasion of Mariupol, Ukraine will premiere in Canada at the Hot Docs Film Festival in Toronto on Saturday.
Mstyslav Chernov, an Associated Press journalist and the director of 20 days in Mariupoltogether with two colleagues made graphic images of civilian deaths, a bomb attack on a maternity hospital and the start of the war in the port city in eastern Ukraine.
“We are Ukrainians and we are journalists. And we just felt it was our duty to stay and report as long as we could,” Chernov told CTV’s Your Morning on Friday.
At the time, Chernov and his colleagues were the only international reporters in Mariupol.
Images Chernov and Associated Press journalists Vasilisa Stepanenko and Evgeniy Maloletka were able to collect and share reports and videos of the invasion, including footage of a pregnant woman being rolled out of a bombed-out maternity hospital on a stretcher that was sent worldwide. seen. Chernov believes their reporting influenced the international support and aid Ukraine received in the early days of the war.
In Russia, their images were claimed as propaganda, Chernov told Your Morning, but “as international journalists we just had to keep filming… And we didn’t do all this because Russia said we are actors, we did this because it was important to stay show what happened to (the Ukrainian) people.”
Earlier this year, Chernov and his colleagues won the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression International Press Freedom Award for their reporting in Mariupol.
20 Days in Mariupol plays at the TIFF Bell Lightbox Theater in Toronto on Saturday at 2:45 p.m. EST. You can stream the movie from May 5 through May 9 on the Hot Docs website.
