Mstyslav Chernov’s film 20 Days In Mariupol won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature March 10, while the Best Short Doc Academy Award was won by Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers for The Last Repair Shop.
Director Mstyslav Chernov was in Mariupol in 2022 when the city was under siege by the Russian military who were busy laying waste to large parts of it. In the documentary, a team of Ukrainian journalists trapped there document the war’s atrocities, capturing horrific but unforgettable scenes of death, destruction and human suffering.
During an emotional acceptance speech, Chernov said that he wished “to be able to exchange this [award] for Russia never attacking Ukraine, never occupying our cities.”
“I wish to give all the recognition to Russia not killing tens of thousands of my fellow Ukrainians. I wish for them to release all the hostages, all the soldiers who are protecting the land, all the civilians who are now in their jails.”
“But I cannot change the history,” Chernov added. “I cannot change the past.”
See Business Doc Europe interview with Mstyslav Chernov and review of 20 Days In Mariupol.
The other nominees in the Best Documentary Fature category this year were Bobi Wine: The People’s President by Christopher Sharp/Moses Bwayo; The Eternal Memory by Maite Alberdi; Four Daughters by Kaouther Ben Hania, and To Kill a Tiger by Nisha Pahuja.
Best Short Documentary Academy Award
Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers won the Best Short Documentary Academy Award for The Last Repair Shop. This is Proudfoot’s second win in three years after his The Queen of Basketball won in 2022. Proudfoot and Bowers were also nominated in 2021 for their short film A Concerto Is A Conversation.
The 2024 Oscar-winning short doc concerns a Los Angeles downtown warehouse where a handful of devoted craftspeople keep over 80,000 student musical instruments in good repair. In his acceptance speech, co-director Bowers acknowledged these people.
“The Last Repair Shop is about the heroes in our schools who often go unsung, unthanked, and unseen,” he said, “Tonight, you are sung, you are thanked, and you are seen.”
Bowers added that, “LA is one of the last cities in America to give public school students free and freely prepared instruments. We need to fix that because music education isn’t just about creating incredible musicians. It’s about creating incredible humans.”
See Business Doc Europe interview with Ben Proudfoot and Kris Bowers.
The other nominees in the Best Short Doc category this year were The ABCs of Book Banning by Sheila Nevins; The Barber of Little Rock by John Hoffman, Christine Turner; The Island In Between by S. Leo Chiang, and Nǎi Nai and Wài Pó by Sean Wang.
