20 Days in Mariupol gave audiences a visceral view of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; Mstyslav Chernov now turns his lens towards Ukrainian soldiers, and the impossible decisions they face as they fight for every inch of land. Amid a failing counteroffensive in 2023, Chernov follows a Ukrainian platoon traversing through a stretch of heavily fortified forest on their mission to liberate the small, Russian-occupied village of Andriivka. But as the film intimately reveals, the farther the soldiers advance through their destroyed homeland, the more they realise that, for them, this war may never end. 2000 Meters to Andriivka documents a battle emblematic of the broader Russian-Ukraine war – the largest military operation in Europe since World War II – and presents a view of modern warfare reminiscent of battles fought nearly a century ago.

Note by David O’Mahony