Best TV, video or documentary about international affairs with a run time over 30 minutes
AWARD YEAR: 2023
AWARD NAME: The Peter Jennings Award 2023
RECIPIENTS: Mstyslav Chernov, Michelle Mizner, Raney Aronson-Rath, Derl McCrudden and Staffs
AFFILIATION: FRONTLINE (PBS) and The Associated Press
HONORED WORK: “20 Days in Mariupol”
A team of fearless AP journalists in Ukraine, led by Mstyslav Chernov, risked their lives to show the toll of war during the Russian onslaught, filming and interviewing civilians in hospitals, makeshift bomb shelters, the rubble of buildings, and burial grounds. Many of the images made evening news shows and became iconic early in the war, but this documentary tells the back story, showing what happened before and after those moments in heartbreaking, intimate scenes – dying children, terrified residents, courageous medical teams. There is not one false note in this powerful narrative. While the events in this film took place early in the war, the story it tells is just as urgent and relevant today, with Ukraine’s plight growing ever more precarious, support from the U.S. and the West increasingly uncertain, and Russia ever more emboldened. The film also won an Academy Award.
Link to the winning work:
“20 Days in Mariupol”
Citation for Excellence:
Martin Smith, Marcela Gaviria, Brian Funck and Scott Anger
FRONTLINE (PBS)
“America and the Taliban”