Film Forum

In his follow-up to Oscar®-winner 20 DAYS IN MARIUPOL, Pulitzer-winning AP journalist Mstyslav Chernov again immerses us, cinematically and emotionally, in the war in Ukraine — this time during the 2023 counteroffensive. Embedded with a small Ukrainian platoon on a high-stakes mission to liberate the Russian-occupied village of Andriivka, Chernov and colleague Alex Babenko hole up in trenches, shadowing soldiers as they inch forward through forest, minefields, shellings, and artillery fire. This first-person witness to war’s cruel reality intersperses with intimate, moving moments — conversations that reveal the bare humanity of young men on the frontlines who dream and fear and hope.

Presented with support from The Ashes and Diamonds Fund for Eastern European Film and The Endowed Fund for Emerging Filmmakers

2025     106 MIN.     USA / UKRAINE     PBS DISTRIBUTION
IN ENGLISH AND UKRAINIAN WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES

Reviews

“EXTRAORDINARY. What’s truly remarkable about [the film], and what sears it straight into your brain, is the soldiers’ real helmet-cam footage. You are transplanted into the individual soldiers’ point of view…a furious document of the futility of this war in particular and wars in general, a fierce insistence on the truth of soldiers’ sacrifices.”
– Alissa Wilkinson, The New York Times

★★★★★ “EXTRAORDINARY. This jaw-dropping doc is an ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT for the Ukraine war… Does a stunning job of bringing humanity to its combatants — an extraordinarily brave and determined bunch… A groundbreaking view of the horror and pity of war. I can’t remember a cinematic experience quite like it.”
– Phil de Semlyen, Time Out

“Presents both the literal and spiritual fog of war better than any nonfiction film in recent memory.”
– Bilge Ebiri, New York Magazine

“EXTRAORDINARY, both in its scope and its impact…From the tiniest moments of humanity, to the purring of a cat placed into a knapsack for retreat back behind the lines, we see the brutal reality of combat exposed, as well as the quotidian conversations that have taken place on battlefields throughout history that were never captured with this level of intimacy…”
– Jason Gorber, POV Magazine

“Mstyslav Chernov cements his position as a defining chronicler of the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine… An immediate yet contemplative look at modern warfare.”
– Daniel Fienberg, The Hollywood Reporter

“2000 METERS TO ANDRIIVKA is a documentary both vigorous and exhausted, propulsive and petrified, with a prevailing tone of anxious fatigue encapsulated by one soldier’s plaintive, barbed question: ‘What if this war is until the end of our lives?’”
– Guy Lodge, Variety

“Powerfully considers the immeasurable costs of war.”
– Stephen Saito, The Moveable Fest

“A fearless piece of filmmaking in the face of danger.”
– Amber Wilkinson, Screen