Brent Renaud, an acclaimed filmmaker who traveled to the world’s darkest and most dangerous places to shoot documentaries that transported audiences to little-known places, died Sunday following Russian forces opened fire on his vehicle in Ukraine.
The 50-year-old from Little Rock, Arkansas, was gathering material for a report on refugees when his vehicle was shot at at a checkpoint in Irpin, just outside the Ukrainian capital Kiev. The Interior Ministry said the area has come under heavy shelling by Russian forces in recent days.
Renaud was one of the most respected independent producers of his day, said Christof Putzel, a filmmaker and friend of Renaud’s. Both won an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University journalism award in 2013 for “Arming the Mexican Cartels,” a documentary regarding how weapons trafficked from the United States fueled rampant drug trafficker violence.
“This guy was the best of all,” Putzel told The Associated Press by phone from New York City. “He was the best war journalist I know. He literally went to all the conflict zones.”
Ukrainian authorities did not immediately clarify the details of Renaud’s death, but US journalist Juan Arredondo said the pair were traveling in a vehicle to the Irpin checkpoint when they were shot. From a Kiev hospital, Arredondo told Italian journalist Annalisa Camilli that Renaud was hit in the neck. Arredondo was shot in the lower back.