Mstislav Andreevich Chernov is a Ukrainian director, videographer, photographer, photojournalist, war correspondent and writer.
Place of Birth, Education
He was born on July 3, 1985 in Kharkiv.
Career
Career as a photographer
He started working as a photographer in 2005 at the Kharkiv news agency MediaPort.
In 2008, he took 1st place at the photo exhibition “Kharkiv. The city through the eyes of the townspeople.” That same year, his first solo exhibition, Musica per somnia, took place.
In 2009, Chernov won the exhibition “Almost Lost Kharkiv”, presenting photographs of the destroyed old architecture of the city.
Since 2008, he has collaborated with international projects “Children of Chernobyl” and Novick Cardiac Alliance, photographing heart surgeries.
In 2012, he lived in Cambodia, where he worked on cultural and medical projects.
In 2013, Chernov took 1st place in the “Photographer of the Year” competition in the nomination “Documentary Photography”. He also won the Pentax Awards Ukraine 2013 and the competition “The Best Press Photographer of Ukraine” in the nomination “Portrait”.
In particular, he presented a personal exhibition “Rainy Season” with photos from the Far East.
In 2013, Chernov also headed the public organization “Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers”. In the same year, he presented the installation “Looking Through the Windows”: enlarged old photographs were placed in the windows of abandoned buildings.
Journalistic activity
In the summer , he filmed protests in Gezi Park and Taksim Square in Istanbul. After that, he moved from art and documentary photography to covering wars and conflicts.
At the end of 2013, Chernov covered the protests in Kyiv as a correspondent for MediaPort and Unframe.
In early December, the police attacked journalists, injured Chernova’s hand, tore up his license and destroyed photographic equipment. In particular, in January 2014, a law enforcement officer threw a stun grenade at him, despite the “Press” markings. As a result of the explosion, the photographer was injured in his legs and eyes.
In particular, Chernov helped foreign journalists who came to cover the Revolution of Dignity, the annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas. He worked as a translator and stringer for the Associated Press (AP).
In May 2014, he became an AP freelancer.
Since July, Chernov has been preparing texts, photographs and videos for the agency. In the same year, he covered the war in Donbas.
On the 3rd day of the journalist’s work in Donbas, Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 was shot down. He was one of the first to photograph the crash site. For this work he received the Royal Television Society Young Talent of the Year Award.
Subsequently, he covered the war in Syria, the battle for Mosul in Iraq and the migration crisis in European countries.
In 2017, in Mosul, a sniper bullet pierced Chernov’s camera and stopped in a bulletproof vest. His videos from Iraq made it to the finals of the Rory Peck Award, as well as the Royal Television Society Awards in 2017 and 2018.
During his career, Chernov’s materials were published by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Guardian, Le Monde, Deutsche Welle and other world media. In particular, reports were published on the BBC, CNN, Euronews, Fox News, Sky News and Al Jazeera.
In the spring of 2020, Chernov worked in Libya and Syria, and also covered the migration crisis in Turkey.
From May to July and from September to October, he documented the course of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ukraine.
Already in August, Chernov covered the presidential elections and protests in Belarus. In Minsk, he was detained and beaten by law enforcement officers. In the paddy wagon, the photographer fainted, and regained consciousness already in the ambulance.
Subsequently, he was deported from Belarus.
In 2020-2021, Chernov also worked in Nagorno-Karabakh, Afghanistan, Lithuania and Armenia.
In 2023, he joined the jury of the Georgy GonGadze Prize and became one of the 50 heroes of the first printed issue of Vogue released during the full-scale war.
In 2024, Chernov became a jury member of the ImpACT Award at the 81st Venice Film Festival. The following year, it was included in the rating “Ukrainska Pravda 100. Leaders of Culture” publication “Ukrainska Pravda”.
At the end of 2022, Chernov was also included in the rating “People of NV 2022 in the Year of War” and the Forbes Ukraine list about the symbols of Ukrainian resistance.
In particular, Chernov shot the Oscar-winning documentary “20 Days in Mariupol” and the Emmy Award-winning film “2000 Meters to Andriivka”.
In 2026, he headed the jury of the Golden Eye Award for the best documentary at the Cannes Film Festival.
Literary activity
In January 2020, Chernov presented the psychological novel “The Times of Dreams“, on which he worked for 8 years. Its plot is based on the real events of the war in Donbass, the migration crisis in Europe and other conflicts witnessed by the author.
The work consists of 4 related stories that unfold from eastern Ukraine to Southern Europe and Southeast Asia.
In 2022, the photo book “Independents” was published, which included 144 photos by 60 Ukrainian photographers taken over 30 years – from the declaration of independence to the pandemic. Chernov was the author of the idea and texts.
