Exclusive Screening of '20 Days in Mariupol' in Naples: A Glimpse into Ukraine's Darkest Days

In Naples, the documentary '20 Days in Mariupol', which won the Oscar on March 10th, arrives exclusively, narrating the most terrible days of the war in Ukraine. A special occasion with 'AstraDoc - A Journey into the Cinema of Reality', the series curated by Arci Movie that on Friday, April 5th, at 21 brings to Cinema Astra the film by Mstyslav Chernov, which will be introduced by the Ukrainian consul in Naples Maksym Kovalenko together with the journalist Zhanna Zhukova. The event will be preceded by another film that still tells of another front of international crisis, 'The lost souls of Syria', scheduled at 19. The two screenings will be available thanks to the collaboration with the magazine Internazionale and Cineagenzia within their Mondovisioni series that brings documentaries on current affairs, human rights, and information selected and awarded by major international festivals to Italy. The films start, therefore, from the Middle East with the work of Garance Le Caisne and Stéphane Malterre 'The Lost Souls of Syria' presented in 2022 at the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA). In 2014, twenty-seven thousand photos of civilian detainees tortured to death were published, smuggled out of the secret archives of the Syrian regime by a military defector codenamed Caesar. The work investigates the impotence of international justice in prosecuting the criminal Syrian state. While the case seems destined for oblivion, the families of the victims, together with activists and Caesar himself, seek truth and justice through courts across Europe: over five years of investigations and battles will lead to the first trial against senior officials responsible for the Syrian death machine. At 21 on the big screen of the hall in via Mezzocannone arrives '20 Days in Mariupol' by Mstyslav Chernov, Oscar Winner for Best Documentary and Audience Award winner at the Sundance Film Festival. On the eve of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a team of journalists enters the port city of Mariupol. During the subsequent siege, as bombs fall, residents flee and access to electricity, food, and water is cut off, the reporters, the only ones left, struggle to tell the atrocities of the war until surrounded by Russian soldiers they take refuge in a hospital, trapped. Their images, broadcast by global media, document death and destruction and will deny Russian disinformation. Faced with so much pain, the Ukrainian director and journalist Mstyslav Chernov wonders if filming can still make any difference, but it is the citizens of Mariupol themselves who implore him to continue, so that the world may witness. 'When in the winter of 2022 the Americans and then the Europeans evacuated the staff of their embassies from the city of Kiev, and I analyzed on the maps the gathering of Russian troops right in front of my city, I could only think: "Oh my poor Country". In the first days of the war, the Russians bombed the huge Freedom Square of Kharkiv, where I had spent my twenties. I knew that the Russian forces would consider the eastern port city of Mariupol as a strategic conquest, for its position on the Sea of Azov. So, on the evening of February 23rd, I headed there along with my colleague Evgeniy Maloletka, Ukrainian photographer of the Associated Press, with his white Volkswagen van. During the journey, we were worried about not having enough spare tires, and we found online a man nearby, willing to sell them to us. We explained to him and to a cashier of the grocery store open all night that we were preparing for war. They looked at us as if we were crazy. We arrived in Mariupol at 3:30. The war began an hour later,' says Mstyslav Chernov. The entrance ticket costs 5 euros, reduced to 4 euros for Arci members. Single ticket for both shows 8 euros. The Cinema Academy Astra is in via Mezzocannone 109. For information and updates, it is possible to visit the social channels of AstraDoc or browse the website www.arcimovie.it. The AstraDoc series is curated by Arci Movie in collaboration with the University of Naples Federico II, Coinor, and Parallelo 41 Produzioni. The series has the patronage of the Municipality of Naples.