20/22 (Season 1)

20/22 (2024) is a Russian wartime drama you can watch online on iFILM. A journalism student named Danil, sick of the hypocrisy he sees in the capital, signs up as a volunteer and heads to the front.

Danil grew up in Sevastopol and understands the neighboring country a bit better than his friends do. His girlfriend Alice is firmly against the war. When she learns she is pregnant, she sets out after him, hoping to pull him back before he makes a mistake he can't undo. Finding one person in the chaos of combat turns out to be nearly impossible. Several weeks inside the hell of the Mariupol assault reshape them both, forcing each to see that the world is wider than their certainties, while their feelings face a test neither of them asked for.

Director Andrey Simonov keeps the focus less on the battlefield than on two people the war keeps tearing apart and throwing back together. Aristarkh Venes and Darya Kukarskikh play the leads. A fit for viewers after an intimate drama about love, fear and choice in the middle of catastrophe, rather than a parade-ground action piece. Stream 20/22 (2024) online on iFILM.