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Kvedaravičius (at the 2011 Berlinale): Documented the Siege of Mariupol
Photo: imago stock&people
On April 3, the press service of the Ministry of Defense of Ukraine announced the death of Lithuanian director Mantas Kvedaravičius.
He was killed trying to leave the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, which was besieged by Russian troops, it said in a tweet.
The Russian filmmaker Vitali Manski had previously reported on the death of his 45-year-old colleague.
He was killed "with the camera in his hand," Manski wrote on the Internet service Facebook.
The Lithuanian Foreign Ministry was "shocked" by the news.
Kvedaravičius was in the port city in southeastern Ukraine to "document Russian war atrocities."
With his film "Mariupolis" he had already documented the siege of Mariupol in 2014 by Russian troops.
The film ran at the Berlinale in 2016.
Kvedaravičius was actually filming a feature film in Uganda when Russia attacked Ukraine, his producer Uljana Kim told Lithuanian media.
The filmmaker immediately decided to return to Mariupol.
The circumstances of his death could not initially be independently confirmed.
A friend of Kvedaravičius, Ukrainian journalist Albina Lvutina, wrote on Facebook and Instagram that the filmmaker was captured and killed by "soulless Russian military".
The body was simply disposed of.
Kvedaravičius' wife brought the remains to Lithuania on her own initiative.
Irina Prudkova, the production manager of »Mariupolis«, describes the apparently dramatic circumstances of this action on her Facebook page.
Accordingly, Kvedaravičius' wife transferred the body to Lithuania via Donetsk, Russia and Latvia.
According to the Lithuanian medium »15min«, he has meanwhile arrived there.
A forensic investigation is planned.
Lithuanian broadcaster LRT reports that the Lithuanian Prosecutor General's Office is investigating the case as part of its investigation into war crimes committed in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Zelenskyj condoled his Lithuanian counterpart Gitanas Nausėda.
In the letter, which was sent to the BNS news agency by the Ukrainian embassy in Vilnius, he wrote about the "murder of the well-known film director Mantas Kvedaravičius by the Russian occupying forces in Mariupol".
Kvedaravičius, an archaeologist by training, had already received an award at the 2011 Berlin Film Festival.
He received the Amnesty International Film Prize for his film »Barzakh«.
In it he reported on a Chechen village.
The human rights organization wrote: "We are shocked and saddened by the news of Mantas Kvedaravicius' death".
He was awarded the Amnesty Film Prize in 2011 because he had "managed to establish close ties with the people of Chechnya".
In 2019, Kvedaravičius' first feature film, »Parthenon«, was shown at the Venice Film Festival in the »Critics' Week« series.
feb/AFP/Reuters/AP