World premiering this year at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, the directorial debut of New Zealand actress Lucy Lawless, ‘Never Look Away’ documents the incredible story of war photojournalist Margaret Moth. The documentary follows Moth’s career as she films footage from war-zones and her life after getting shot while filming in Sniper Alley in Saravejo.
Following the Sundance debut, the documentary has since screened at other film festivals including the 2024 SXSW Film Festival, Canada’s Hot Docs International Film Festival, and the 10th Mammoth Lakes Film Festival as the festival opener.
Release Date
Directed by Lucy Lawless, ‘Never Look Away’ opens in select US theaters and on VOD on November 22, 2024.
Synopsis
CNN camerawoman Margaret Moth fearlessly captures footage of war zones. After receiving catastrophic injuries in the crosshairs of battle, she returns to work with more courage than ever. An intimate portrait of a trailblazing female photojournalist. Features interviews with Moth’s family and friends, including CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. A Sundance film festival premiere directed by Lucy Lawless.
“I want it to be an emotional experience, and the same way I experience a character, I want you to experience my film,” said director Lucy Lawless on the film in an interview with Eye For Film. “When I’m acting, I’m feeling that character somatically and I want you to enter into discovering Margaret and her crazy friends. I want you to have your own feelings about it. So, I’m trying to engineer a somatic experience in you, the audience.”
Reviews
Joe Leydon from Variety gave the film a positive review, writing, “Compact yet complex portrait of a singularly and aggressively unconventional war correspondent who inspired equal measures of admiration and anxiety among her friends, colleagues and lovers.”
Marya E. Gates in a RogerEbert.com review also praised the documentary, writing, “Although she sometimes falters with first time filmmaker-isms, Lawless not only crafts a fitting tribute to fearless CNN camerawoman Margaret Moth, her film also elicits chilling comparisons to the current geopolitical situation in Gaza.”
Official Trailer
Watch the official trailer for ‘Never Look Away.’