Ukrainian director and music video shot in liberated Mykolaiv Oblast nominated for MTV Video Music Awards

Organisers of the annual MTV Video Music Awards have announced this year's nominees. Among them are Ukrainian music video director Tanu Muiño with a video filmed for Doja Cat, and the music video by Imagine Dragons, filmed in a liberated settlement in Mykolaiv Oblast.

The MTV Video Music Awards 2023 nominees were announced by the MTV channel on 8 August. The voting is open until 1 September on the award website.

Ukrainian Tanu Muiño, known for her videos for such world-famous artists as Harry Styles, The Weeknd, Cardi B, and Lil Nas X, and her Attention video for the American artist Doja Cat, claims the award in three categories at once: Video of the Year, Best Art Direction and Best Direction.

This is not the first time Muiño is being nominated for the MTV Video Music Awards: her video Montero (Call Me By Your Name) for Lil Nas X won three nominations for this award in 2021, and she received two awards for the video As It Was for Harry Styles in 2022.

The video for the Crushed song by the American pop-rock band Imagine Dragons is also in the running for the award this year. The musicians, who became ambassadors of the UNITED24 government initiative, shot their music video in the village of Novohryhorivka, Mykolaiv Oblast, which the Russian occupiers destroyed.

The video, the main character of which was a 14-year-old boy, Sashko Zhurskyi, who survived the occupation, was nominated in the Best Video for Good category. The other nominees in it are videos for Alicia Keys (If I Ain't Got You), Bad Bunny (El Apago​​n), Demi Lovato (Swine), Dove Cameron (Breakfast) and Maluma (La Reina).

For reference: The annual MTV Video Music Awards, awarded for the best music videos released, was founded by MTV in 1984. Initially, it was conceived as an alternative to one of the most popular music awards, the Grammy. Since 2006, the winners have been chosen by the audience.

This year, the award winners will be announced at the award ceremony on 12 September.

Photo: MTV

At the MTV Video Music Awards 2023, Taylor Swift became the leader in the number of nominations; she is claiming awards in eight categories, including one of the most important – Artist of the Year. SZA comes second with six nominations.

Interestingly, only women will compete for victory in the Artist of the Year category for the first time in the contest's history: Taylor Swift, Beyoncé, Nicki Minaj, Doja Cat, Karol G and Shakira.

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