On March 13, 2022, filmmaker Brent Renaud became the first American journalist killed while reporting on the war in Ukraine—shot by Russian soldiers just three weeks into the conflict. Since then, approximately 400 journalists have been killed worldwide, making this, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, the most dangerous time on record to be working in the field. Armed Only With a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud arrives as both an elegy by a mourning brother and an alarm bell by an industry professional, desperate to raise awareness. Directed by Craig Renaud, who spent over two decades filming alongside his brother in conflict zones from Iraq to Somalia to Chicago’s most violent neighbourhoods, the Oscar-nominated documentary follows Brent’s final journey home while excavating twenty years of verité footage to locate the man behind the camera. The challenge was considerable, as filmmakers who believed in disappearing behind their subjects, finding Brent’s voice within thousands of hours of archives required the kind of forensic editing that ultimately consumed three and a half years. What emerges is not just a memorial but a historical overview of the observational approach that the Renauds made their signature—the commitment to physical presence, to being on the ground and capturing stories through compassion rather than voyeurism. Craig Renaud joins DN as part of our continuing 2026 Oscar nominees interview series to discuss the instinctual decision to keep filming after Brent’s death, how the rhythms of war shaped the short’s sound design, and how his brother’s voice guided every cut.
It was something we had talked about many, many times working in dangerous places together – what do we do if one of us are killed? And we always said we would keep filming, we would keep telling the story.
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