Filmmaker Fatally Shot in Ukraine – A Tribute to Brent Renaud

Behind the Scenes

by Jeff LochMarch 14^th, 2022

Award-winning documentary filmmaker Brent Renaud died yesterday in Ukraine while filming the conflict for a documentary. Brent and his brother Craig, known as the Renaud Brothers, traveled the world to tell exclusive stories of Iraq, Mexico, and Afghanistan. At age 50, Brent Renaud is the first foreign journalist to pass away in Ukraine during this war.

As filmmakers, we often forget that our craft is not only about the latest camera, lenses, light, or piece of technology in general. Instead, it’s about capturing untold stories. As a result, working as a news or documentary filmmaker is undoubtedly one of the riskiest careers in our field.

We learned that on Sunday, March 13th American award-winning Brent Renaud lost his life while covering the Ukrainian conflict.

What happened?

On Sunday, Brent Renaud was fatally shot in Irpin, near Kyiv, while driving with a local Ukrainian guide and another American journalist, Juan Arredondo. Both the civilian and Juan Arredondo got hurt, but Mr. Renaud is the only one that passed away.

Arredondo says they were going to film refugees in Irpin, the car crossed a bridge and a checkpoint, then “they started shooting at us.” When recording the video below, he did not know his friend Brent did not make it.

According to the New York Times:

Brent was in the region working on a Time Studios project focused on the global refugee crisis,” the editor in chief of Time, Edward Felsenthal, and the president of Time and Time Studios, Ian Orefice, said in a statement. “Our hearts are with all of Brent’s loved ones. It is essential that journalists are able to safely cover this ongoing invasion and humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.”

The New York Times

Brent Renaud is the first journalist to lose his life covering the conflict in Ukraine.

Brent Renaud’s carreer

Brent was born on October 13th, 1971, and is a native of Little Rock, Arkansas. He started his career as a photographer and filmmaker with his brother Craig, also known as the Renaud Brothers.

For over a decade, the Renauds covered all significant dramas of our era, including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the earthquake in Haiti, political turmoil in Egypt and Libya, the fight for Mosul, extremism in Africa, cartel violence in Mexico, and the youth refugee crisis in Central America.

Their work aired on Discovery Channel, HBO, NBC, PBS, ViceNews, and numerous film festivals worldwide. Brent and Craig Renaud’s documentaries include Off to War, Taking the Hill, Dope Sick Love, The Fight for Chicago series, to list a few. In 2012, their film “Surviving Haiti’s Earthquake: Children” won a DuPont-Columbia University Award, followed by a Peabody Award in 2014 for “Last Chance High.”

The Little Rock natives are also the co-founders of the Arkansas Motion Picture Institute.

Covering conflicts

During this Ukrainian war coverage, Brent Renaud was not with his brother Craig, that stopped going to the conflict zones to raise his family.

In a profound article and interview by Filmmakers Magazine in 2015, we learn that the two brothers already faced multiple near-death accidents, with a sentence that made my blood curdle:

We always tell people that the most dangerous part of working in any developing country or conflict zone is getting from one place to the other, and we have had our fair share of really bad car accidents.

And car crashes like IED blasts are generally unavoidable, very much the luck of the draw. But many of the other dangers you encounter in a conflict zone can be avoided or greatly mitigated. Most of the dangerous mistakes we have made came early in our career when we were desperate for real world action, but short on lesson learning experience.

It is important when covering conflict to understand the politics and the players involved. You have to know where it is relatively safe to be, and when. On the first day filming I found myself on the wrong side of town with the wrong players, and nearly got killed when the car I was riding in busted through a military checkpoint, drawing fire on the car from the soldiers.

Craig Renaud – Filmmakers Magazine

It’s hard to imagine how stressful these kinds of situations must be for filmmakers. All of our thoughts at CineD go towards Brent’s family, colleagues, and loved ones.

Sources: IMDb, The New York Times, The Renaud Brothers, Filmmakers Magazine