Oscar-winning filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov returns to the front in 2000 Meters to Andriivka, drawing primarily on helmet and body-cam footage recorded by Ukrainian soldiers during the 2023 counteroffensive. Their task: to advance two kilometres through mined, shell-blasted forest and reclaim the occupied village of Andriivka.

What emerges is immersion rather than reportage. Chernov arranges fragments of lived experience: sweat-drenched faces, whispered doubts, sudden gunfire, fleeting moments of humour or tenderness. On-screen markers count down the metres still to fight, while casualties are noted with chilling matter-of-factness. The film creates a rhythm of endurance, loss, and fragile resolve.

This is no triumphal account. Soldiers bury comrades, cradle a cat, or speak aloud the fear that the war may outlast their lifetimes. The immediacy denies distance: every frame insists on war as it happens, not as history. Each advance is both progress and lament, proof that every metre of ground carries a weight far greater than its measure.