Exclusive to One World Online: Award-winning documentary 2000 Metres to Andriivka takes you straight into the trenches
One of the most acclaimed war documentaries of recent years, 2000 Metres to Andriivka, is now available exclusively on our VOD platform, One World Online. Its release comes exactly three years after the brutal fighting that culminated in the liberation of the Ukrainian village of Andriivka, making the film not only a cinematic event but also a tribute to the soldiers still serving on the frontline. Directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov, whose work earned the Directing Award at Sundance, the documentary plunges viewers into the harsh reality of trench warfare and presents a truth that cannot be ignored. In the Czech Republic, this remarkable film is available exclusively on One World Online.
One World audiences are already familiar with the work of Mstyslav Chernov. With 2000 Metres to Andriivka, the acclaimed Ukrainian journalist follows up his groundbreaking debut 20 Days in Mariupol, which won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature in 2024. We were proud to screen the film at One World that same year. Chernov’s close connection to the festival is evident in his personal attendance at the Brussels edition of One World, where he took part in a discussion with audiences following the screening.
From a besieged city to the trenches
While 20 Days in Mariupol focused primarily on civilian victims trapped in a besieged city, 2000 Metres to Andriivka shifts its attention directly to Ukrainian soldiers. Chernov asks who they are, what paths brought them to the frontline, and what impossible decisions they must face in wartime. He is far more than a distant observer behind a camera. Together with his Associated Press colleague Alex Babenko, Chernov entered the trenches and heavily mined forests himself in an effort to bridge the psychological distance between audiences sitting safely in cinemas and the raw reality of combat.
This approach helped the film earn widespread acclaim from both audiences and critics. It received the World Cinema Documentary Directing Award at the Sundance Film Festival and has been celebrated internationally.
The brutal relativity of distance
In peacetime, the route to Andriivka, a village on the outskirts of Bakhmut, could be walked in less than an hour. During Ukraine’s 2023 counteroffensive, however, advancing just 2,000 metres through this heavily fortified corridor required weeks of relentless fighting.
The documentary follows Ukraine’s 3rd Assault Brigade and shows how students, lorry drivers and mechanics became frontline infantry almost overnight. At the centre of the story is Fedya, a 24-year-old sergeant and former warehouse worker. At the beginning of filming, Chernov sat together with his unit in a small room near the front. There were four of them. Today, three years later, only Fedya remains alive. Even the recapture of Andriivka brought little sense of victory. Virtually nothing of the village was left standing. This stark reality reflects one of the defining features of the war in Ukraine, where victory often means reclaiming a home that has already been destroyed.
No film crew, only helmet cameras
The way the documentary was made completely overturns conventional ideas about war filmmaking. Within the first few minutes, viewers are confronted by an extended unbroken shot that captures the stark reality inside a Ukrainian trench. The narrative is then built around unedited footage recorded by GoPro cameras mounted on the soldiers’ helmets.
As a result, the advance towards Andriivka is experienced not from the safety of a television studio but through a first-person perspective. The film’s intensity, filled with the sounds of drones overhead and crackling radio communications, is heightened by an innovative soundtrack. Austrian musician Jakob Vasak and two-time Grammy Award winner Sam Slater, known for his work on Chernobyl and Joker, composed the score entirely from authentic sounds recorded on the battlefield.
“What if this war lasts for the rest of our lives?”
This haunting question is asked by Ukrainian soldiers in the trenches themselves, but it also lingers in the minds of cinema audiences and will now resonate with viewers watching at home. Director Mstyslav Chernov adds another chilling warning, one that reflects a challenge increasingly visible across Europe, including in the Czech Republic: what happens when people choose to look away from the truth and place their faith in lies instead? As he puts it: “When the weapons fall silent, a new war begins: the war for truth and memory.”
These words feel especially powerful now, in September, exactly three years after Ukrainian forces liberated the devastated village of Andriivka following fierce fighting. In the context of the upcoming Day of Defenders of Ukraine on 1 October, One World is bringing this film to its VOD platform as a deeply moving, though often harrowing, tribute to all those who continue to risk their lives on the frontline. One of the most emotionally powerful cinematic experiences of recent years, 2000 Metres to Andriivka, is available exclusively on One World Online.