Sundance Institute

The entire Sundance Institute community mourns the loss of our colleague and friend Tim Hetherington, killed while covering the conflict in Misrata, Libya. He was an amazing talent and special human being who documented the world as never captured before.

Tim came to the Sundance Film Festival in 2010 with his co-director Sebastian Junger to premiere their film Restrepo, one of the most in-the-trenches war documentaries ever made. Together Tim and Sebastian spent a year with the Second Platoon in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley and endured incredible dangers in order to share with audiences an intimate portrait of the camaraderie of men under daily fire. Below is an interview with Tim and Sebastian about their film shortly before premiering it at Sundance, where they won the Grand Jury Prize for Documentary and were later nominated for an Academy Award.

Tim also worked as a photographer for another Sundance-winning documentary, Ricki Stern and Annie Sundberg’s Devil Came on Horseback. Documentary Film Program Director Cara Mertes said about Tim, “He was universally admired for the way he created unforgettably human portraits in the midst of conflict and violence. His sheer bravery and determination in the field was unmatched, as was his compassion for the experiences of those he was telling stories about.”

We send our sincere condolences to the Hetherington family, and to Tim’s many friends and admirers all over the world.

Click here to view a slideshow of Tim’s photographs on The New York Times.