2000 Meters to Andriivka: Screening and Discussion

From the Oscar-winning team behind 20 DAYS IN MARIUPOL, 2000 METERS TO ANDRIIVKA documents the toll of the Russia-Ukraine war from a personal and devastating vantage point. Following his historic account of the civilian toll in Mariupol, Mstyslav Chernov turns his lens towards Ukrainian soldiers — who they are, where they came from, and the impossible decisions they face in the trenches as they fight for every inch of their land.

Amid a failing counteroffensive in 2023, Chernov and his AP colleague Alex Babenko follow a Ukrainian brigade battling through approximately one mile of a heavily fortified forest on their mission to liberate the Russian-occupied village of Andriivka. Weaving together original footage, intensive Ukrainian Army bodycam video and powerful moments of reflection, 2000 METERS TO ANDRIIVKA reveals with haunting intimacy, the farther the soldiers advance through their destroyed homeland, the more they realize that, for them, this war may never end.

The screening will be followed by a conversation with Mstyslav Chernov, Director, Writer, Producer, Raney Aronson-Rath, Executive Producer, and Michelle Mizner, Producer and Editor, moderated by Azmat Khan, Director, Simon and June Li Center for Global Journalism.

This event is co-sponsored by the Simon and June Li Center for Global Journalism, the Harriman Institute, and the Ukrainian Film Club at Columbia University and the Overseas Press Club and presented in partnership with FRONTLINE PBS.

Wednesday, November 12, 2025, 6:00-8:30pm

Columbia Journalism School, Lecture Hall, 3rd Floor, Pulitzer Hall, 2950 Broadway, New York, NY 10027

Registration required. Refreshments will be provided.

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Mstyslav Chernov is a Ukrainian filmmaker, war correspondent, videographer, photojournalist, and novelist. He is a Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award® winner known for his coverage of the Revolution of Dignity, War in Donbas, the downing of flight MH17, Syrian civil war, Battle of Mosul in Iraq, and the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, including the Siege of Mariupol. Chernov’s work on the Siege of Mariupol for The Associated Press, earned AP the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, Deutsche Welle Freedom of Speech Award, the Knight International Journalism Awards, Bayeux Calvados-Normandy Award, Elijah Parish Lovejoy Award, Free Media Awards, CJFE International Press Freedom Award, Royal Television Society Television Journalism Awards, and Shevchenko National Prize. AP video journalism from Mariupol became the basis of the film 20 Days in Mariupol, which was included in the competition program of the Sundance Film Festival in 2023, where the film won the Audience Award in the World Cinema Documentary category. The film later won the BAFTA Award for Best Documentary and Best Documentary Feature Film at the 96th Academy Awards. Chernov won a Directors Guild of America Award. In 2023, The Associated Press earned the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for Chernov’s work with Evgeniy Maloletka, Vasilisa Stepanenko, and Lori Hinnant. He has both won and been a finalist for the Livingston Award, Rory Peck Award, Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Prize, and various Royal Television Society awards. Chernov is an Associated Press journalist and the President of the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers (UAPF). He has been a member of "Ukrainian PEN" since July 2022.

Michelle Mizner is an Academy and Emmy Award®-winning documentary film producer and editor on staff at FRONTLINE PBS. Films and projects Michelle has cut and produced have broadcast internationally, screened at top tier festivals including Sundance Film Festival, SXSW, DOC NYC and CPH:DOX, and have been awarded by the Peabodys, World Press Photo, Overseas Press Club, Edward R. Murrow Awards and the duPont-Columbia Awards. Michelle's work for the series has spanned many storytelling forms. In addition to films, she has produced podcasts and multiple acclaimed interactive documentaries, including Inheritance (2016), The Last Generation (2018), and Un(re)solved. (2021). All three earned Emmys for Outstanding New Approaches in Documentary. Most recently, Michelle produced and edited the feature documentary 20 Days in Mariupol (dir. Mstyslav Chernov) which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won the Audience Award. For her editing, Mizner was nominated for an ACE Eddie and Cinema Eye Honor award, and won a British Film Editors award. Later, the film was nominated in two categories for the BAFTAs, winning in Documentary Feature, and won the Academy Award® for Best Documentary Feature. Mizner is a member of the Producers Guild of America and American Cinema Editors.

Raney Aronson-Rath is the editor-in-chief and executive producer of FRONTLINE, PBS’ flagship investigative journalism series, produced at GBH in Boston. Under her leadership, FRONTLINE has evolved into a multi-platform organization, expanded its reporting capacity, and won every major award in documentary filmmaking, including an Academy Award®, BAFTA Awards, News & Documentary Emmy Awards, Peabody Awards and the Peabody Institutional Award, and, in 2019, the first Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Gold Baton to be awarded in a decade. When Aronson-Rath became Executive Producer of FRONTLINE a decade ago, she began working to expand the storied brand — the diversity of its makers, subjects, and style — and spearhead films more consistently into the theatrical and festival world. During her tenure, the series won an Academy Award® for 20 Days in Mariupol (2024), and received Academy Award® nominations for Abacus: Small Enough to Jail (2018), For Sama (2020). In 2021, Aronson-Rath became a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. An Oscar-winning producer and recipient of the prestigious 2024 John Chancellor Excellence in Journalism Award, Aronson-Rath is thought leader in both documentary filmmaking and in investigative journalism. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin and her master’s from Columbia Journalism School. She joined FRONTLINE in 2007, previously working at ABC News and The Wall Street Journal.

Azmat Khan is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist who reports on war and the Patti Cadby Birch Assistant Professor at Columbia Journalism School, where she also leads the Simon and June Li Center for Global Journalism.

Columbia University makes every effort to accommodate individuals with disabilities. If you require disability accommodations to attend this event, please contact the Office of Disability Services at 212-854-2388 or disability@columbia.edu at least 10 days in advance of the event. Requests for CART (Communication Access Realtime Translation) or sign language interpretation require two weeks’ notice.