Sundance 2025: 2000 Meters from Andriivka, Cutting Through Rocks, Khartoum | Festivals & Awards

Three films in the World Cinema Documentary Competition tell stories from countries in the midst of conflict. Mstyslav Chernov’s “2000 Meters From Andriivka” follows the Ukrainian counteroffensive as it seeks to liberate the titular village. In “Cutting Through Rocks,” co-directors Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni profile a politician fighting for progress within her patriarchal rural Iranian village. Finally, with their film “Khartoum,” a Sudanese film collective use green screen technology to celebrate the lives and dreams of six of their fellow countrymen displaced by war. 

With “2000 Meters From Andriivka,” Ukrainian director and journalist Mstyslav Chernov, whose previous film “20 Days in Mariupol” netted a Best Documentary nomination at the Oscars, once again captures unsettling images from the frontlines of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. His latest film begins inside a trench during the Ukrainian counteroffensive as a series of battalions seek to liberate the village of Andriivka. Cameras strapped to the helmets of soldiers give the film’s opening sequence a “Call of Duty” style and a strange impersonal distance that it struggles to overcome. This is not helped by Chernov’s whisper-like voiceover and Sam Slater’s overbearing score, which aim for poetry but are ultimately shallow and overwrought. 

While the battle footage is harrowing and Chernov’s focus on the minutiae of combat violence is as relentless as war itself, for most of the film this style manages to render something as intimate as a young man’s death as empty as a video game. There are pockets where Chernov is able to spend time getting to know a few soldiers on a deeper level, later to reveal they died in another offensive a few months later. This dramatic irony showcases the weight of war, whereas the on-screen deaths of the men we never got to know feel more like a presentation of the “horrors of war” for viewer consumption. 

The film ends with the liberation of the village. In voiceover, Chernov says, “The villagers are all dead or gone… people, animals, memories, all that is left of it is in ruins.” Yet, never once have we learned about the village. What was it like before the war? What was its story outside of the context of the war? If the life of this village is now constricted to the annals of history, this documentary is more concerned with showing its dead body than it is in keeping its memory alive. 

A reverence for life, however, is at the heart of “Cutting Through Rocks,” Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni’s portrait of a lady pushing personal and political boundaries in rural Iran. Shot in a vérité style, the film follows Sara Shahverdi, the first elected councilwoman of her rural Iranian village (and the only female representative for any of the surrounding three hundred villages). “I’m always ready to ride my motorcycle…and to fight,” she tells us. From a young age, Shahverdi bucked tradition. Tired of rearing daughters, when she was born, her father raised her more like a son, allowing her to choose how she dresses, go into spaces typically reserved for men, and even learn how to ride his motorcycle. A divorced woman, she shocks those around her by living alone and not putting up with anyone’s bullshit. 

Needless to say, Shahverdi is a badass. Before the election, we watch her confront one of her brothers who tried to swindle her sisters out of their share of their father’s inheritance. After the election, we see her use the completion of an election promise (getting gas hookups for the village) as a way to convince men to register half their houses in their wives’ names (to avoid the kind of inheritance drama at the center of a film like “Inshallah A Boy”). She even visits an all-girls school to inspire them to pursue their educations and resist the pressures of their families who push them towards child marriage, later taking a few of them on a motorcycle ride.  

Of course constantly bucking against the system has created enemies for Shahverdi, including one of her brothers who is also elected to council at the same time and always seems to be undermining her work. For every moment of progress that Shahverdi achieves, there is a moment of heartbreak. In one of the most distressing scenes in the film, we see a young girl on her wedding day, who just a few weeks earlier had been riding free on her motorcycle. The girl’s face is downtrodden, and when she sees the camera, she hides. This footage is contrasted with archival footage from Shahverdi’s own forced marriage, where she sports the same discontented gaze.

In the film’s bittersweet coda, Shahverdi takes the few girls from the class who have not become child brides for a ride on their motorcycles, this time with their parents as well. “I wanted big change,” Shahverdi says in voiceover, “but now I see it takes patience. Sometimes small changes are enough.” 

Before a military coup and a war displaced over 10 million people in Sudan, the filmmakers (Anas Saeed, Rawia Alhag, Ibrahim Snoopy, Timeea Ahmed, and Phil Cox) of “Khartoum” had set out to chronicle the lives and dreams of six participants from different walks of life—young bottle collectors Lokain and Wilson, civil servant Majdi, tea stall owner Khadmallah, and resistance committee volunteer Jawad. After the subjects and the filmmakers are forced to flee, the group comes together in a safe location outside the country to reenact their survival stories and reconnect with their dreams. 

Through creative use of green screen technology to place them back in their homes or neighborhoods, each participant recreates the moment they knew their country would never be the same, often with other participants acting out the aggressors. These scenes pull out strong reactions from the individuals as they dive back into deep emotional places, prompting the directors to hug them when they finish. The green screens also allow the participants to live out their dreams, which include everything from riding on the back of a lion to flying over the starry night sky of their city on the back of a giant pigeon. 

These recreation scenes are contrasted with footage filmed before the outbreak of the war. Here, we see the vitality of the city. Like Khadmallah’s sidewalk tea shop, where customers swap their visions for a new Sudan as they drink their beverages, or Majdi’s pigeon racing club, where heintroduces his son to its indelible members. One sequence evokes Barry Jenkins’ “The Gaze” as citizens of Khartoum look directly into the camera, smiles of hope for the future of their country, giving them all a wondrous glow. 

“War has taught me that nothing is more important than home,” Jawad says from his new food stall in Cairo, where he works with other displaced refugees. But “Khartoum” is no elegy or funeral dirge for Sudan. It is a loving celebration of their homeland, set to the lively beats of Sudanese musicians. Like the pop ballads of the great singer and poet Mohammed Wardi or the futuristic synth-infused dance music of Jantra. This music gives the whole film a pulsating sense of optimism, making it clear that Sudan will rise again.