The title of a UNESCO report last December sums up a grim reality: “Journalists killed in 2024: high death toll in conflict zones for second year in a row.”
In Gaza, Ukraine and other battlefields around the world, photojournalists and journalists continue to risk their lives to document the brutal impact of war on combatants and innocent civilians. What compels them to take such dangerous missions? Two new Oscar-winning documentaries provide insight into this important but troubling issue.
In the latest episode of Deadline’s Doc Talk podcast, we open the mic to Love + war Co-director E. Chai Vasarhelyi and her documentary’s protagonist, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Lynsey Addario. We also speak with Craig Renaud, director of Armed only with a cameraa documentary about his brother – the late filmmaker and photojournalist Brent Renaud – as well as producer Juan Arredondo, who went into the field with Brent at the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Addario has captured extraordinary images in Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan and other areas of intense conflict. Outside Kyiv, she was injured in an attack by Russian forces who killed civilians just meters away from her. The National Geographic film reveals how Addario tries to balance her job with motherhood; She raised two children with her husband in London while regularly entering the field with the knowledge that she would never return home.
Brent Renaud paid the ultimate price for trying to capture the plight of civilians driven from their homes by millions in Ukraine’s war. Arredondo, who was at Renaud’s side when their vehicle was criticized by a Russian soldier, takes us back to that fateful day in Irpin, Ukraine. Craig Renaud shares the heartbreaking story of traveling to Ukraine to retrieve his brother’s body and bring it home to Arkansas.
Armed only with a camera Starts streaming on HBO Max on October 21. Love + war Opens theatrically on October 29 before premiering National Geographic on November 6 and on Disney+ and Hulu on November 7.
The conversations with Vasarhelyi and Addario, and Renaud and Arredondo, are among the most powerful we’ve recorded for Doc Talk.
Doc Talk is hosted by Academy Award winner John Ridley (12 years a slave, Shirley) and Deadline Senior Documentary Editor Matt Carey. Doc Talk is a production of Deadline and Ridley’s Nō Studios.
Listen to the episode above or on major podcast platforms including Spotify, Iheart and Apple.
