20 Days in Mariupol (2023)

Nominated for Best Documentary Feature    Content warning:  war violence, graphic injury, dead bodies, dead children (including infants), and dead animals (cat)

An Associated Press journalism team embeds with local military group inside a hospital for 20 days to witness the siege of Mariupol, Ukraine, by Russian forces.  

If you've been following the on-going war in Ukraine, you likely saw some of the footage uploaded to news sites.  It is a graphic witness to war crimes committed, including the bombing of indiscriminate civilian targets, that will likely go unpunished for years, if not forever.  But the record remains.  

Since this is going up on Monday, you already know this won in its category.  I'm not mad at it.  It's an extremely professional documentary and important evidence.  I am a little annoyed that this exact playbook happened already in Syria and nobody gave a damn about it.  Vladimir Putin used the Middle East as a test run for re-colonization and nobody in the wider international community put a stop to it.

20 Days in Mariupol is streaming for free on YouTube on the PBS page as part of their Frontline series.