Margaret Moth’s life could have been ripped straight from a pulp fiction novel. The New Zealand-born photojournalist spent her youth dropping acid and skydiving before traversing the globe to blaze trails for women in the world of war photography . Rising through the ranks at CNN, she covered war zones in Kuwait, Georgia, Bosnia, Lebanon, the Congo, Somalia, Chechnya, Gaza, and Sarajevo — where she took a bullet to the face that permanently limited her ability to speak but barely slowed her down.
Unfazed by gunfire and explosions, she saw battlefields as breeding grounds for the kind of human drama that was worth risking any amount of physical safety to document. She did it all while maintaining an unapologetically individualistic mindset, refusing any kind of commitment that could hinder her ability to drop everything at a moment’s notice to pursue a new adventure. While she was never interested in family, she seemed to make a lasting impact on men around the world, many of whom recall their fleeting relationships with her with reverence that borders on spiritual.
She’s equally beloved among her fellow journalists, who uphold her fearlessness as an example of the profession at its best Those exes and colleagues serve as the primary narrators of “ Never Look Away ,” a new documentary directed by Lucy Lawless that attempts to give Moth the kind of hagiography that her eventful life merited. Told largely through still photographs, war zone B-roll, and interviews wit.