Shooting from the Heart: Craig Renaud and Juan Arredondo on Armed Only With a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud

As I wrote in my capsule review for this year’s SXSW curtain raiser, Armed Only With a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud is a film that Craig Renaud, Brent’s brother (and my friend for the past dozen years, ever since I met the tight-knit siblings covering their now defunct Little Rock Film Festival) should never have had to make and instigated by an event no family should ever have to live through. And that puts Brent’s loved ones in the grieving company of untold numbers of families around the world — the very same people the award-winning conflict zone documentarian (alongside his younger sibling) dedicated his life to, a life he lost on March 13, 2022 while covering Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It’s a stunning 37-minute eulogy, made all the more palpable through Brent’s own words and cinematography, to a brother and lifelong filmmaking partner, a dogged journalist and ultimately a victim of war. In turn it’s also a powerful tribute to all conflict zone journalists and to all victims of our never-ending wars. The week before the doc’s October 21st HBO debut, Filmmaker caught up with Craig and producer Juan Arredondo, a Colombian-American photojournalist who was seriously injured in the March 13th attack, at the Hot Spring Documentary Film Festival (where Craig presented the siblings’ mentor Jon Alpert with the Brent Renaud Career Achievement Award) to hear all about cinematically honoring Brent, a multi-award-winning documentarian who like his brother preferred to remain firmly offscreen.

To read my interview visit Filmmaker magazine.