Lithuanian documentary film director murdered in Ukraine’s Mariupol

Lithuanian film director Mantas Kvidaravicius died Saturday in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, where he had long been documenting the besieged port city, colleagues and a news report said.

“Our friend, the Lithuanian documentary writer Mantas Kvidaravicius, was killed today in Mariupol with the camera in his hand in this damned, diabolical war once morest the whole world,” Russian director Vitaly Mansky said on Facebook.

Kvidaravicius is best known, among other things, for his documentary on the conflict zone “Mariopolis”, which premiered at the 2016 Berlin International Film Festival.

The film was filmed in Mariupol, the strategic port in the breakaway region of Donetsk bordering Russia, where pro-Russian militants have been battling Ukrainian forces since 2014.

Lithuanian public broadcaster LRT said Kvidaravicius was born in 1976 and that he studied at Vilnius University and obtained a degree in social anthropology from Cambridge University.

She added that the death of the director has not yet been officially confirmed.