April 21, 2011 
Oscar-nominated filmmaker Tim Hetherington and photojournalist Chris Hondros have been killed while covering the rebel conflict in Libya.
According to the New York Times, the duo came under fire in the city of Misrata; two other photographers – Michael Brown and Guy Martin – were wounded in the melee.
Hetherington was an acclaimed photojournalist who made his film debut with the documentary Restrepo, in which he and co-directed Sebastian Junger spent one year with a platoon in Afghanistan. It was nominated for Best Feature Documentary at the 2011 Academy Awards.
He followed Restrepo up with the short film Diary, which can be watched in full here.
Hetherington tweeted on April 19th:
“In besieged Libyan city of Misrata. Indiscriminate shelling by Qaddafi forces. No sign of NATO.”
Discuss: There is no way to view this – and the entire Libyan conflict – as anything other than a terrible tragedy. Hetherington’s commitment to journalism and his eventual sacrifice is a reminder of the importance of cinema as a medium to communicate the horrors that occur all over the world; horrors we would sometimes like to pretend don’t exist at all.
The importance of cinema as a medium to communicate the horrors that occur all over the world is true but I wish there was more in cinema dealing with civilians who live through these conflicts. We are bombarded with movie and documentaries dealing with soldier suffering but we seem to forget they’re not fighting on empty land there are people who live there. Apart from a few locally made films I think there is a real void in films dealing with civilians in conflict.