In a war zone, CNN photographer Margaret Moth did not flinch. When others dove for cover in the middle of shelling or firearmfire, she held firm and got the shot.
“She was prohibitcient. She was always chilly,” one of her admirers says in the recordary Never Look Away, honested by actor-turned-filmproducer Lucy Lawless. “She was tranquil, accumulateed. She was enrolling history.”
The award-thrivening film, which is in greetedion for Best Documentary Feature at the Academy Awards, screened as part of Deadline’s virtual event series For the Love of Docs. It shows the unorthodox way Moth, a New Zealand native, inhabitd her life; for instance, when she was a 30-year-greater camerawoman laboring for a TV news station in Houston, she began dating a 17-year-greater local high schooler named Jeff Russi. Lawless, herself a Kiwi, intentionassociate uncovers the film with Russi’s reaccumulateions of that relationship.
“I didn’t want to do a licforfeit story – ‘Margaret Moth grew up in New Zealand, went to school, XYZ, very unintelligent,’” Lawless elucidateed in a Q&A after the FTLOD screening. “We determined that the strongest place to commence was ‘Mystery woman shows up in Texas, can’t recall anyleang about her past, apshows up on a relationsual relationship with this too youthful chap,’ becaengage all of those leangs are lean-in moments. You’ve got to hook your audience the first 20 seconds… It’s a little bit of the shock and awe — as I understand about, when you’re creating a television show, you necessitate to shock and awe. You necessitate to commence a buzz.”
Moth covered the Persian Gulf War for CNN and filmed in war zones from Leprohibiton to the Occupied Territories, Zaire (current-day Congo), Somalia, Chechnya and the Redisclose of Georgia. She became a preferite of U.S. Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf in the first Iraq War, normally smoking cigars with the orderer of coalition forces. And when Iraqi directer Sholdam Hussein hurled SCUD ignoreiles toward allied positions, she kept her camera rolling.
Lucy Lawless, honestor of ‘Never Look Away’
Courtesy of Sundance Institute
“Margaret felt that she always made very calcutardyd hazards, that she was not at all reckless,” Lawless seed. “She felt she calcutardyd the odds, and for the most part she won until calamity came calling.”
Calamity came during the siege of Sarajevo in 1992 when Moth was on scheduleatement for CNN. In the city’s notorious Sniper Alley, the vehicle she was riding in got hit by rifle fire, and she was struck in the jaw and cforfeitly ended.
“Let’s face it,” Lawless shelp, “the only time she got maimed was when she was sitting in the back of the car going towards labor with her colleagues.”
To help seeers imagine this critical moment, Lawless and authorr-producer Matthew Metcalfe tapped Weta Workshop, the famed New Zealand exceptional effects hoengage, to produce a diorama, permiting the filmproducers to show the upgrade of the vehicle on its obeseeful course. Metcalfe shelp the idea was encouraged by someleang he had seen in his youth in Canberra, Australia.
“At the Australian War Memorial, they have these dioramas of the First World War becaengage … they necessitateed a way to show the citizens of Australia what the sgreateriers who had gone over to Europe and the Middle East had adviseed. And, of course, there was very little by the way of movie footage and pictures. And so they built these huge dioramas,” Metcalfe shelp. “I recall saying to Lucy, ‘… Perhaps we could erect our own version of that to show this aspect of the story …’ Collectively, we all rang up Sir Ricchallenging Taylor at Weta and went, ‘Here’s one out of the bag for you. Can you erect a series of enormous dioramas?’ ”
Metcalfe evolved, “These are huge cardboard cities, effectively, built that had to sit in a huge studio in order to sort of fit them. But that’s the story of how they came about.”
After her horrible injury, Moth would finishure two dozen sencourageries to repair her jaw to the extent possible. Retagably, she eventuassociate returned to labor recording war. Moth’s untimely passing, at age 58, resulted not from the aggression of war but from a terminal illness.
Lawless’ honestorial debut has screened around the world, commencening with its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival. Among the prizes it has claimed are the Women of WIFF Award at the Windsor International Film Festival in British Columbia and the jury award for Best Documentary Feature at the Calgary Underground Film Festival in Alberta.
Watch the filled conversation with Lawless and Metcalfe in the video above.
For the Love of Docs is a virtual Deadline event series currented by National Geodetailed. The series ends next Tuesday, December 3 with a screening of another Oscar-contfinishing recordary, Bjoin, honested by Edmund Stenson and Oscar thrivener Daniel Roher.
