Tim Hetherington, Co-Director/Co-Producer of Oscar-nominated 'Restrepo,' Killed in Libya Attack
By Tom White
Tim Hetherington, who collaborated with journalist Sebastian Junger to make the acclaimed, award-winning documentary Restrepo, about a US military outpost in Afghanistan, was killed today in an attack in Misrata, Libya, according to reports on ABCNews.com and Huffington Post. He was covering the ongoing war there. Fellow photojournalist Chris Hondros was also killed in the mortar attack.
According to his website, Hetherington was born in Liverpool, England in 1970. He studied literature and photojournalism at Oxford University, and later covered many wars and conflicts around the world for Vanity Fair and ABC News, among other outlets. He published three books that featured his photography: Healing Sport, part of group project Tales of a Globalizing World (Thames & Hudson 2003). Long Story Bit By Bit:Liberia Retold (Umbrage Editions 2009), based on his experience living in Liberia and West Africa; and Infidel (Chris Boot Ltd 2010), about a group of US soldiers in Afghanistan, continues the examination of young men and conflict.
Restrepo earned numerous honors, beginning with the Grand Jury Prize at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival and culminating with a Academy Award nomination for Best Documentary Feature. Prior to making Restrepo, Hetherington worked as a cinematographer on Jonathan Stack and James Brabazon's 2004 film Liberia: An Uncivil War and on Annie Sundberg and Ricki Sterns' The Devil Came on Horseback. He also recently made a short doc, Diary, about his ten years as war photojournalist.
For an article from the June 2010 IDA e-newsletter about Restrepo, click here.
Here are, respectively, an interview with Hetherington and Junger about Restrepo, prior to the film's world premiere at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival; and Hetherington's last film, Diary:
Diary (2010) from Tim Hetherington on Vimeo