Our 2013 True Life Fund Film, Which Way is the Front Line from Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington, premieres tonight on HBO. This film is director Sebastian Junger’s moving tribute to his lost friend and colleague, the photographer Tim Hetherington, who was killed while photographing the Libyan civil war in 2011.
This year was the first time our True Life Fund film featured a subject no longer with us. In Tim’s memory, we raised funds for two charities closely linked with his life and work. These are the Milton Margai School for the Blind, where Tim took some of his most powerful photographs, and RISC (Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues), an group recently created by Junger to provide war reporters with first-aid training. Through the generosity of our audiences and our TLF partner The Crossing we were able to raise a record $36,760 for these organizations.
Hetherington’s photography captures human dignity and frailty in the midst of war and its aftermath. His unforgettable images continues to attract attention and create conversation.
The last two photos are both part of exhibitions of Hetherington’s photography currently running in NYC. “Sleeping Soldiers”, pictures of US troops deployed in Afghanistan, is at The International Center for Photography. And “Inner Light: Portraits of the Blind”, black and white photos taken at Milton Margai between 1999 and 2003, is showing at the Yossi Milo Gallery (you can find coverage of this show and a selection of images on the New Yorker’s Photo Booth blog). You can explore more of Tim’s work in online galleries at Vanity Fair, the Guardian and HBO Documentary Films.
Tragically, Tim’s promising career as a filmmaker was only in its infancy when he died. In addition to co-directoring with Junger the masterful Afghanistan war documentary Restrepo (T/F 2010) Hetherington created the short film Diary, available below through Vimeo. He described Diary as “a highly personal and experimental film that expresses the subjective experience of my work, and was made as an attempt to locate myself after ten years of reporting. It’s a kaleidoscope of images that link our western reality to the seemingly distant worlds we see in the media.”
Which Way is the Front Line From Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington premieres tonight 8 Eastern on HBO, and will be available afterwards on HBO Go and HBO On Demand.