Homecoming on film: Award-winning Mariupol documentary screened for 1st time in Ukraine
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The award-winning film “20 Days in Mariupol” made its premiere in Ukraine on Saturday, when it was seen for the first time by some of the Ukrainian medics and first responders who were chronicled in the documentary about how Russian forces bombed and blasted their way into the port city last year.
Repeated standing ovations in a packed Kyiv cinema, mixed with tears and hugs, greeted the civil servants who toiled nearly non-stop in and around a Mariupol hospital that was a centerpiece of the film that documented the early days of the fight for the city, which eventually fell to Russian hands.
For some, the screening served as an unsettling flashback to their own brushes with death, a fate inescapable for untold numbers of victims of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, including toddlers, infants and expectant mothers whose final moments are shown in the film.
“It was very hard emotionally because it reminded me of when we were leaving Mariupol, there were still a lot of casualties,” said Serhii Chornobrivets, 25, an ambulance worker who treated countless patients in the city, and is now a military medic. “I could have saved more people, but I didn’t.”
https://apnews.com/article/mariupol-sundance-film-chernov-maloletka-stepanenko-ukraine-russia-kyiv-1d7fdf07e480112b8b92255b0ee99b61
