Apr. 24 — Kharkiv journalist and director Mstyslav Chernov will head a jury for one of the Cannes Film Festival awards called L’OEil d’Or (“Golden Eye in English”), said the award’s website.

After the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Chernov, along with a team of journalists from Associated Press, created a documentary, 20 Days in Mariupol, that covered Moscow troops’ war crimes in the city.  In 2024, this movie won an Oscar.

2,000 Meters to Andriivka, Chernov’s new film, was released on Aug. 28, 2025. The documentary has already received high critical reviews: The Times called it “the most important film of the year,” Metacritic and Letterboxd ranked it the highest among this year’s documentary premieres.

Chernov is the president of the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers (UAPP) and has been a member of PEN Ukraine since 2022. His work explores conflicts, social issues, and environmental crises across multiple formats: film, photography, text, and virtual reality. Chernov has been injured several times while reporting from war zones, said the L’OEil d’Or.

The award’s jury also included an American director, Tabitha Jackson, a French actress, Géraldine Pailhas, a French-Algerian-Palestinian director and actress, Lina Soualem, and a French journalist, Victor Castanet.

The L’OEil d’Or award was founded in 2015. It is given to films presented in the official selection of the Cannes Film Festival, including the competition, Un Certain Regard, out-of-competition, midnight, special, and Cannes Classics programs. Documentary films are also eligible for selection.

The award will be presented on Friday, May 22, at the Palace of Festivals and Congresses of Cannes.

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