0:00

The new documentary feature, 20 Days

0:02

in Maryupol, from Frontline and the

0:05

Associated Press, is now playing

0:07

in select theaters and coming to PBS

0:09

this fall. Last February,

0:12

as we marked a year of the war in Ukraine,

0:15

I hosted an in-person recording of The

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Dispatch at the Boston Public Library

0:19

with director Mrs. Lev Chernov and

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my colleague, producer and editor

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Michelle Meisner. I'm Reni

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1:04

We're so pleased to be here at the BPL

1:06

to talk about our documentary, 20 Days

1:09

in Maryupol, that we produced alongside

1:12

the Associated Press. And

1:14

it's extra special because we have with

1:16

us AP reporter Mrs. Lev Chernov,

1:18

who directed and filmed this documentary.

1:21

We're also joined by Michelle Meisner, the

1:23

talented Frontline editor who helped

1:25

turn this reporting into the unforgettable

1:28

documentary that it is, 20 Days

1:30

in Maryupol. It is an unflinching account

1:33

of the Russian siege of the port city

1:35

of Maryupol, which remains to

1:37

this day under Russian occupation.

1:40

Really special, Mrs. Lev, to have you with us

1:43

all the way from Ukraine, for you to be in Boston

1:45

with us today. Thanks for being on The Dispatch. Thank

1:48

you. And why don't I have you take us back to the very moment

1:50

that you and your two colleagues

1:52

made the decision to go into Maryupol?

1:54

Well, the story starts

1:57

actually as the invasion of Russia.

2:00

to Ukraine starts not in 2022, but

2:02

in 2014. My

2:05

story as a journalist working in Donbass

2:08

and in Marupol II starts in 2014. As

2:12

many other documentary photographers

2:14

and videographers, I

2:17

became automatically a war

2:19

photographer, a war videographer because the

2:22

war started in my country, Russia invaded Ukraine.

2:26

And throughout these nine years, part of

2:28

covering other

2:30

wars for AP and Syria,

2:32

Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya,

2:36

I was always coming back to Ukraine

2:39

and I was trying to tell

2:41

the story of Donbass

2:43

people. And through these nine years,

2:45

we've studied well the frontline,

2:49

the dynamics of the war, people

2:52

who were at the front

2:52

lines in the trenches or just

2:55

residents who lived in this

2:57

gray zone, which was always under

3:00

attack. So

3:02

in February,

3:04

the whole beginning of February, we

3:08

could see that something is different and things

3:10

are heating up and Ukraine's

3:13

preparing more and more for this

3:16

upcoming, probable upcoming invasion.

3:19

And on 23rd of

3:22

February in the evening,

3:25

piecing this puzzle together with listening

3:29

to what Russian media is saying, listening

3:31

to what our sources on the frontline are saying,

3:35

we realized that war is

3:37

going to start tomorrow or probably

3:40

very, very soon. So it was late

3:42

evening and we spoke to

3:44

AP editors and we

3:48

left for Marupol because Marupol seemed

3:50

to be one of the crucial

3:52

tactically, symbolically targets

3:55

for Russia at that point, regardless

3:58

of whether it was going to...

3:59

attack the whole country, Russia's

4:02

Donbas, it was a new way to crime

4:04

me. Right, so if you can just tell us, people

4:07

who don't know exactly where Marupol is, help

4:09

us understand why you knew that that was going to be

4:11

such a strategic place

4:13

for Russia as they were coming into Ukraine.

4:16

Yeah, if you look at where the Marupol is placed

4:18

and what is Marupol in

4:20

its core, it's a huge port and

4:25

it's an economic center

4:28

of the whole Donbas region

4:31

and it's strategically

4:34

positioned on the way from

4:36

Russia to Crimea which was

4:38

occupied in 2014. So

4:41

in order to make this

4:43

corridor to Crimea, Russia would

4:45

need it to take it and it was

4:49

just by its placement you could see

4:52

that if the war is the full-scale

4:54

invasion is going to really start then it's

4:56

going to be surrounded. So actually

4:58

we kind of

5:01

sat around the table and we

5:04

had this conversation whether we are

5:06

ready to be surrounded

5:08

and we

5:10

didn't know how long is going to be the siege, we

5:12

didn't know how violent is going

5:14

to be here, we didn't know

5:17

if the city is going to be occupied in the end

5:19

or not but we

5:21

knew that we're going to get surrounded

5:23

at some point and we had to

5:26

make plans to deal with

5:28

that.

5:28

Right, you know a lot

5:30

of times when reporters are calling me from the field

5:33

the conversations are really serious

5:35

about security, the risks you're taking,

5:39

the thought behind going into a really dangerous

5:41

place. So tell me about your conversation

5:44

with your editors at that time.

5:46

Everybody understood

5:48

it and obviously

5:50

it was a lot of discussions and security

5:53

calls and discussions

5:57

about what's the plan for evacuation, what's

5:59

the

5:59

plan for staying. So

6:03

in the end, if you

6:05

have a solid plan of

6:07

your operations and if you have security

6:10

assessment and plans how do you escape

6:13

in case A happens, B happens,

6:15

C happens, then you

6:19

go and you do your work until time

6:22

comes that you just can't. That's

6:24

exactly what happened. But what

6:26

we didn't expect that it's

6:29

not only

6:29

the city is going to get surrounded where that we are going

6:32

to be the last international

6:34

journalists who are going to be reporting

6:37

from the city and therefore our

6:39

names became known.

6:42

We couldn't just get lost in the

6:44

crowd

6:44

anymore. Right, you will just sort of disappear. How did you

6:46

know you were the last international

6:48

journalist and when that happened how

6:51

did that feel and

6:53

tell me about your colleagues too.

6:54

In the beginning of the siege we've

6:56

seen a lot of international press.

7:00

When the circle

7:02

around Maripo was closing there

7:04

were several convoys of journalists

7:07

and diplomats who were leaving the city along

7:10

with the civilians and

7:14

we knew that many journalists have left. However

7:16

we had solid plans on how

7:18

do we what do we do in case we

7:20

get surrounded. So

7:23

we were not that worried again

7:25

because we didn't know that we will

7:28

be the last ones and then

7:30

after a few days of reporting because

7:33

I would every morning I would try to

7:35

or in the evening I would just run out of this

7:37

hospital where we lived and I would open

7:41

the phone, a satellite phone and

7:43

wait until it catches the connection. You

7:45

would have to wait for like 10 minutes to

7:48

sit in there and

7:51

as soon as you get connection you call to the

7:53

editor and you start

7:55

asking questions. What happens to you with

7:58

the other Ukrainian cities and one of

7:59

One of the questions is obviously who else

8:03

is reporting from Marjubal and at

8:05

some point they told

8:08

us no one else is reporting

8:10

from there.

8:10

Tell us about the two people that you were

8:13

with and the roles they played. Evgeny

8:16

Maloletka is a

8:18

still photographer, amazing

8:20

photographer who just got a world

8:23

press photo for

8:25

the devastating image

8:28

of a pregnant Irina

8:31

who later died with her child. She's been carried

8:34

through the rubble by

8:38

rescue workers. We have that moment

8:40

in the film too so you can

8:42

kind of also see how we

8:44

got there to that iconic

8:47

moment, the devastating moment. I

8:51

worked with him for nine

8:53

years basically in Ukraine. We

8:55

are good friends and we trust each other. That's

8:57

what you need when you cover in conflict

9:00

actually. I feel producer of

9:02

us, Lisa Stepanyankov, a young

9:04

Ukrainian journalist. She's

9:07

a part of a generation of this

9:09

amazing young journalist who were

9:12

basically born, forged

9:14

through this war

9:17

as terrible as it is and gave birth

9:19

to the generation of

9:22

young talents.

9:23

So Michelle, try to remember the first

9:25

time I told you about what I was seeing

9:27

coming out of Marjubal and what we might

9:30

do. Well, I remember

9:32

a couple of emails and

9:34

a conversation with you about this

9:37

discussion you'd actually just had with Mr.

9:39

Slov and some of his editors from the Associated

9:42

Press. I think what was

9:44

so remarkable about it,

9:46

one of the things that was remarkable about it is that they had

9:48

just gotten out of the city. I think if

9:50

they escaped from Marjubal on March

9:52

16th, you guys were talking

9:55

days later.

9:56

there

10:00

was an urgency behind doing

10:03

the work, and you said,

10:05

I want you to talk to Ms. Aslav. We

10:08

ended up talking the next day,

10:11

and it was

10:14

like the first of many very long phone

10:16

calls and Zoom calls where you would tell me about everything

10:18

that had just happened, and

10:20

I

10:21

think what I appreciated

10:24

about it was that you

10:25

were already ready to do something with all the footage

10:27

that you were able to get out, and

10:30

you didn't want it to just sit there on a drive anywhere.

10:33

It was important to do something with it, and so

10:35

we worked with the Associated Press to

10:38

get the footage from

10:39

where you were in Ukraine, to London,

10:42

to Boston, and

10:44

our team at Frontline helped

10:46

make sure that that got ingested and translated

10:48

and organized as quickly as possible. So

10:51

much work. A lot of work. It was so much work, you know,

10:53

getting out of Ukraine with the footage, which

10:55

you see in the film, it's just remarkable

10:58

then what happened to get it all the way to Boston

11:01

is really another journey, and thank

11:03

you for reminding me about that because literally

11:06

every hour I would be like, is the footage here? I'm

11:09

texting her.

11:09

Did the footage make it? Did we get it? Did we

11:11

get the drive? Like, is it real? You know, because

11:14

we were in a conversation with you. I knew it

11:16

was gonna be powerful, but it was

11:18

a whole journey to get it all the way to Boston

11:21

where we could start to see more than

11:23

what we had seen in the news. So

11:26

the first time I saw you, Ms. Aslav, you were sitting

11:28

in Ukraine, a different part of Ukraine, and

11:30

you were in a very dark room, and I'll just never

11:32

forget that moment where I said, you

11:35

know, with your editors, you know, do you wanna make

11:37

a documentary? So take me

11:39

to

11:39

the moment where you're thinking to

11:41

yourself, actually, I wanna do something

11:44

longer, deeper documentary

11:46

form. When did you know that that was

11:48

possible? I wouldn't

11:50

say I was planning to do

11:53

documentary in Marjubal when

11:55

I was in Marjubal. I was still

11:57

filming news dispatches.

11:59

At some point I realized that every single

12:02

moment matters, that I have to just record

12:04

everything. That didn't happen immediately.

12:09

After several days I realized

12:12

the scale and how

12:15

much I could miss if

12:17

I just turn off the camera. So

12:20

I decided just not to turn it off

12:22

at all.

12:23

Whenever I can keep it on,

12:25

it will run on until

12:27

I'm out of batteries. That's the problem.

12:30

Longer it runs, less space

12:32

you have on the hard drives later. There

12:35

is no place to charge batteries. So

12:38

you have to compromise whether you

12:40

just keep it rolling or you

12:43

shoot economically. And

12:45

because of that, yes, I missed important

12:47

moments, which I still regret.

12:49

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13:03

you.

13:05

So

13:08

take me to the moment when you're leaving. Beyond

13:11

what we know in the film, what's going

13:13

through your head as you're leaving?

13:15

Well there is a lot of things to worry.

13:17

First of all, obviously we all feel terrible

13:20

because we just can't

13:22

work anymore. We would really want to,

13:25

but we can't because there is no car

13:27

anymore. We lost it when we were surrounded.

13:32

There is no place to live. There is no place

13:34

to charge batteries. So

13:37

there is this green corridor that might

13:40

be working. And

13:43

we get to Vladimir's car with his family

13:46

and he's driving us out. All

13:49

these stakes,

13:50

all these things are

13:53

going through my mind,

13:55

first of all, if we get caught, which is very

13:57

difficult.

13:59

possible because our faces and our names

14:02

are known. What will happen to his family?

14:06

So we we ask them you know please

14:09

if we get stopped just tell them

14:11

you don't know us we just paid you money and

14:14

you know just tell them and Vladimir is

14:16

trying to shut up. He's like

14:19

nothing's gonna happen okay and

14:21

his wife is praying and she's hugging

14:23

her daughter and it's very cold

14:25

because air is going through these holes from

14:27

from Shrapnel. The Shrapnel whose

14:29

peers stole the car so I didn't

14:32

know how he was even driving in this car

14:35

but it's very cold because air is going through

14:38

and the car stops at every checkpoint and

14:40

these soldiers are you know

14:42

looking at these holes in a

14:44

car and asking stupid questions

14:47

what happened to your car and we

14:49

just hold back not to say well you you

14:52

shelled it with your bombs

14:55

and at

14:57

the same time I

14:59

realize how important it is to to

15:02

get out because of these hard drives

15:04

these hours and hours and hours of footage

15:07

it's not just that only 30 minutes

15:10

are published out of 30 hours is

15:13

also important

15:15

to get original files with timestamps

15:18

and you know full files that

15:21

can be put to specific

15:23

locations specific dates

15:25

so later doesn't

15:28

mean there will be but later if

15:31

there is an investigation or if there

15:33

is a need to double check something

15:36

there's always original file to go

15:38

to and and and see

15:41

obviously there is a worry

15:43

for our own life because

15:47

well later it's

15:50

terrible another

15:53

documentary filmmaker from Lithuania,

15:55

Manta Skiravicius was just killed

15:58

so that could happen to us too. He

16:01

was in Mar-Yubo with us, we didn't see him, but

16:04

he was doing his film. He wasn't reporting,

16:07

but he was doing a film.

16:10

And so that

16:12

too, and then if they catch us, Vladimir

16:15

kept saying that probably they will just put

16:18

us in front of the camera and just tell us to denounce

16:21

all reporting. And

16:24

you probably would be able to resist,

16:27

unfortunately. So all these

16:30

things were going through my mind as we were driving.

16:34

And at the same time I was thinking about my

16:36

daughter, so of course I wanted to

16:38

see my family. That

16:41

was very important for me. It was like a drive

16:44

that carries you forward.

16:46

Wow. Michelle and I talked a lot about

16:49

this, really centering a Ukrainian

16:51

journalist's voice on this and how

16:53

different it was feeling to us watching

16:56

it. How important was that to

16:58

you? Because you've covered so many different wars

17:00

and conflicts beyond your own country's

17:03

conflict.

17:03

It's quite interesting

17:05

that when you work in news, you

17:08

kind of try to remove your identity

17:10

out of your coverage. Right, of course. So the fact

17:12

that you are Ukrainian is actually standing on the

17:14

way of the coverage. You

17:17

have to separate your emotions from

17:20

what you do. And with good editors,

17:22

which I have, you can do

17:24

it. Great. For

17:27

documentary film, it's very different.

17:29

I learned that it's very different.

17:33

Deep down I know

17:36

as a newsmaker, as a person who

17:38

just shoots news, I know that we

17:41

form our understanding

17:43

of the current events of the world

17:45

around us by watching news

17:48

and consuming news, but we as

17:52

a generation form our

17:54

understanding of our past with

17:58

documentary films, with both

17:59

So film is a medium

18:02

which carries meaning

18:04

across time for generations to come. If

18:10

I was to tell the story of Marjupol

18:13

to my daughter or to fellow

18:16

Ukrainians, which was so important to me,

18:18

just to let them know what exactly happened

18:20

there, right? Also for those

18:23

people who've been in Marjupol, people

18:25

who have been in Marjupol and

18:28

coming to see this film,

18:29

some screenings, yesterday's

18:32

screening for example, or screenings

18:34

of the Sundance, there are people who got out

18:36

of Marjupol. They cry, it's

18:38

devastating for them, but they come

18:40

after the film and they say, well,

18:43

thank you, that now we

18:45

know that this will not be forgotten.

18:48

Amazing. Okay, Michelle,

18:50

you're such a gifted editor. There were tons

18:52

of conversations between the

18:54

two of you about what could be

18:56

the voice of the film. So talk about that.

18:59

Mrs. Love really didn't want to make it about himself

19:01

or about journalists. He didn't want it to be

19:04

like a hero's journey, hero's

19:06

journalist story.

19:08

So I think there was some navigating

19:11

how to achieve using his voice

19:15

and using

19:17

your position as a Ukrainian journalist to

19:20

tell the story but still keep it about the people

19:22

of Marjupol because that was so important to him as

19:25

well. And there were even some questions

19:27

that I know the three of us, when we would

19:29

discuss feedback, some people, like

19:31

sometimes a more traditional approach might be to have

19:34

him be on camera or to

19:36

go back in film or to sort of do a more

19:38

conventional storytelling.

19:41

But we really ultimately decided

19:43

we were going to stick with what we had and

19:45

really keep him behind the camera and sort of

19:49

you as you're witnessing these horrific

19:51

events

19:54

have him with you. You're

19:56

kind of standing next to him, right?

19:59

you're seeing it through his eyes rather

20:02

than seeing him view it, which creates

20:04

a different feeling. We would discuss,

20:06

for instance, he thought

20:09

maybe he could he could help, he

20:11

could, he would certainly be a part, he was directing

20:13

it and he would help write it, but maybe

20:16

he didn't have to be the person who was speaking.

20:18

Anyway, so he was trying to find ways to skirt around being

20:20

the voice, but ultimately I

20:23

think it it

20:25

felt like you had to be it, and his voice also

20:27

matches the voice from real-time

20:30

footage from behind the camera, and so that goes together.

20:32

It was your decision to speak in English. Well

20:35

that's true, actually. That's a good point. So

20:37

we have a lot of conversations about

20:39

this behind the scenes. Why

20:41

did you decide to speak in English versus Ukrainian

20:45

or Russian? What was your thinking?

20:47

I think this was one

20:51

of the things that naturally happened. We tried

20:53

to voice some scenes

20:55

in Ukrainian and in English

20:57

as well, and we just realized that

20:59

there is so much happening on the screen, that

21:02

would be much easier for the audience to

21:04

figure out what's happening if I spoke in English.

21:06

I think it was also because, I

21:09

mean, you were not

21:12

only speaking to a Ukrainian audience,

21:14

you were speaking to the

21:15

world. The interesting thing is that

21:18

you hear almost

21:20

everyone who's speaking in Mariupol

21:24

is in Russian,

21:26

and yes,

21:28

so this this attempt to

21:31

sit and have conversation with the

21:34

audience, with

21:36

the whole world about what happened in

21:38

Mariupol. It's like me

21:40

as a Ukrainian trying to tell a wider

21:44

audience, tell the world what happened,

21:46

the stories of these parents

21:48

who lost their children, the stories of these

21:51

people who lost their houses and

21:53

their city. So

21:56

yeah,

21:56

English was, I

21:58

think it was the right choice. So

22:00

we have questions from the audience. So

22:03

Mrs. Oft, the question is, how

22:06

do you maintain your humanity slash

22:08

sanity in a situation

22:10

like a brutal military siege?

22:13

Thank you for that question. It's actually

22:15

much harder to maintain sanity

22:18

after you left the siege than

22:20

during the siege because during

22:22

the life-threatening situations, you

22:25

don't have time to process any traumatic

22:27

events that are happening

22:30

to you. And that

22:32

applies to everyone, not only to journalists,

22:34

but whenever there is silence,

22:38

a moment of silence after it's all over, then

22:41

when things start

22:43

happening in your head, and it

22:46

is incredibly important to keep

22:49

yourself healthy, mentally healthy

22:52

for journalists, especially

22:55

because on that depends,

22:59

an objective reporting. So

23:03

you have to take care of that, speak

23:05

to specialists or to

23:07

your friends. But

23:11

also we are

23:13

in somehow a privileged position that

23:17

we understand the purpose of what we

23:19

do and why we are going

23:21

through these events. We

23:24

have made a choice. And

23:28

we're just

23:29

faithful to that

23:31

choice. But those people whose

23:34

stories we tell, they

23:36

don't know why this

23:38

is happening to them and they don't have

23:41

a choice. And

23:43

for them it's much harder.

23:45

So I'm

23:47

gonna start with you, Michelle, on this question. So

23:49

you've spent a lot of time in this film. You've been with

23:51

a lot of audiences now since it premiered

23:53

at Sundance. What are you hoping that people

23:56

take away from this film?

23:57

I hope that something that someone

23:59

said...

23:59

about the film after having watched

24:02

it rings true for many

24:04

and that is that they won't ever look

24:06

at news the same way again

24:09

and for many reasons I think that that's a really

24:12

valuable idea

24:15

to take away from the story. I think that it

24:18

humanizes the people who are both in

24:21

front of the camera because of the way that Mistslav filmed

24:23

it with like compassion and like refusing

24:26

to look away even when it got hard

24:28

but also very respectfully and compassionately

24:30

and then also the people who are behind

24:33

the camera so him and you know Mistslav

24:36

and Zhenya and Vaslice and the people who are risking

24:38

so much to tell these stories of potential war

24:40

crimes and

24:42

so I hope that people walk away with that. Okay

24:45

Mistslav what do you what are you hoping for?

24:47

The

24:48

biggest hope of

24:51

every journalist

24:54

of that discovery in

24:56

the war is that his

24:58

work somehow will help

25:01

people.

25:01

Looking forward I hope

25:04

it just stays there for

25:06

history again as I said before documentary

25:09

films help further generations

25:11

to form their understanding of what happened

25:13

before and I just spoke

25:17

with my

25:20

grandmother recently

25:22

who lived through Second World War through Holocaust

25:25

and I remember her being

25:28

so furious

25:30

about some people claiming

25:31

that Holocaust never happened

25:34

right and and she

25:36

was like oh but all these

25:39

photos and you know there is

25:41

proof that it happened and I thought

25:43

thank God we make all

25:45

these efforts now to document

25:48

every single potential

25:50

war crime that happened in Buca and

25:52

the frontline has a film about it that

25:55

what happened in Marupol all

25:58

this scene maybe

26:01

lost in the sheer amount of the

26:04

chaos of information that is

26:06

happening around us. But it's going to be

26:09

there to

26:12

remember. And for those who will doubt 50

26:15

years from now, 100 years from now, who will say,

26:18

oh no, no, no, nothing happened to Mariupo,

26:20

everything was fine. Look, it's a

26:23

new city. Well, in 100 years, maybe

26:25

it's going to be a new city. But

26:28

the film is going to be there.

26:29

I appreciate that so much.

26:32

I think deeply about that with our work in

26:34

general, that I'm

26:36

really glad you brought up the conversation with your

26:38

grandmother. And also

26:40

having, you know, my own family

26:42

coming from Odessa, Ukraine, you know,

26:45

and also part of my family that stayed that were

26:47

lost in the Holocaust, you know, they

26:49

would be telling us the same thing. So almost

26:52

thinking about the history that we're documenting

26:54

right now and sharing and how it

26:56

can endure. And I just really appreciate

26:58

that you were there to witness

27:00

it, collect it and just

27:02

the bravery in general. So thank

27:05

you for your contributions to

27:07

really, truly history. And thank

27:09

you, Michelle, for being here and

27:12

for being there all the time, but also just for

27:14

creating this with Mrs. Lab, the two of

27:16

you

27:16

are really remarkable. Thanks to the frontline

27:19

for making this happen. Yeah, we

27:21

appreciate it. And thanks for being on the dispatch and

27:23

being with us at the Boston Public Library. It's

27:26

really been an amazing moment.

27:30

This podcast was produced by Emily Pisa

27:32

Creta. Maria Diocno is

27:34

our director of audience development. Katherine

27:37

Guyvard is our editorial coordinating

27:39

producer. Lauren Bracilio is

27:41

our senior editor. Andrew Metz

27:43

is our managing editor. I'm Rene Aronson-Roth,

27:46

editor-in-chief and executive producer

27:48

of Frontline. Music in this episode

27:51

is by Stellwagen Symphonette. The

27:53

Frontline dispatch is produced at GBH

27:56

and powered by PRX.

28:02

from PRX.