Turning the Lens on War Photographer Lynsey Addario in New Doc “Love + War”

BIANNA GOLODRYGA: Next, navigating war-torn Sudan, hiding from explosions in Ukraine, even surviving kidnappings in Iraq and Libya. Photojournalist Lynsey Addario has spent more than two decades documenting some of the most dangerous places on earth. Now, she’s the focus of a new film, “Love + War,” which chronicles the struggle of balancing family life with trips to the front lines. Here’s part of the trailer.

 

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Lynsey has a very distinct ability to make memorable images, but also to be able to go out and find the story.

 

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: She’s really good at that. They prove his inner pictures and that she’s still alive.

 

LYNSEY ADDARIO, PHOTOJOURNALIST AND SUBJECT, “LOVE + WAR”: I want to have impact on policy and women’s issues, but the best stories are in the most dangerous places. I have to constantly weigh what will I risk my life for? You’ve never hugged me like that.

 

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GOLODRYGA: Lynsey Addario and Oscar-winning filmmaker Jimmy Chin join Hari Sreenivasan to discuss the duty and the danger of bearing witness to war.

 

HARI SREENIVASAN:  Bianna, thanks. Lynsey Addario, Jimmy Chin, thank you both for joining us. Jimmy, let me start with you. Your new film, you know, is tracking Lynsey Addario, a war photographer’s life. But if anyone knows of you, they probably know of you from your movies where you’re literally climbing and shooting big mountains, or Alex Honnold, climbing El Capitan, or somebody climbing Mount Everest. Why pick Lynsey? Why pick this story?

 

JIMMY CHIN: Well, on a lot of levels, the stakes are even higher, with the work that Lynsey does. I think that, you know, I’ve been following Lynsey’s work almost my entire career, and we share a peer group, you know, of photographers. But I think when I first started thinking about this with my co-director, Chai, we really wanted to capture a story about, not just an extraordinary conflict photographer or a photographer, but what it is to live that life, the weight of that responsibility, that weight of having a family at home and really give a clear picture of what, you know, someone like that’s life is like.

 

SREENIVASAN: Yeah. Lynsey, we’ve had you on the program multiple times to try to help our audience understand the stories that you help bring to the front. You’re usually behind the lens. 

 

LYNSEY ADDARIO: Well, I mean, I had been asked to be the subject of documentaries before, and I never felt like the time was right, either I didn’t feel like I was in the right place in my career, or I didn’t really feel like my life merited a documentary. And then when Chai and Jimmy approached me, of course, I had huge respect for their work. I was a huge fan as well, and I, and I, the timing felt more right, in the sense that it was right at the beginning of the full scale invasion of Ukraine. I knew I would be embarking on a big project, and I also had come to a point in my career where I had seen so many depictions of war photographers, be it fiction or nonfiction, and there were almost always men. And so I just felt like, you know, it’s time we show what it’s like for a woman, a mother, someone who has to come in and out, who, you know, for me, when I pack my bags, I have no idea if I’ll make it home alive. And I think that it’s, it’s very complicated because I really straddle these two worlds. 

 

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ADDARIO: And I felt like once I accepted to do this project, I knew the drill. I mean, I knew exactly what, you know, what they would be asking of me. And I, very luckily they, the main photographer cinematographer, who shot all the home scenes was Thor Thielow, who was incredible to work with because he was a one man band. He didn’t show – he showed up alone, and he would just hang out for, like, days on end. And that really worked for me because that’s the way I work. And so, you know, everyone in my family felt comfortable with him. I respected his work ethic. I love the fact that he would be like, “can I come at five in the morning before you wake up?” Because I literally do the same thing to my subjects. So it kind of worked. 

SREENIVASAN: Yeah. Jimmy, why start the movie where you did, I mean, this is just days before the kind of official invasion of Ukraine, and you already see Lynsey and her partner just, you know, in the presence of shelling, and, you know, Lynsey’s trying to capture what’s happening going on there. 

 

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SREENIVASAN: Why was it important for you to kind of get the audience primed for, hey, this is what this film’s about?

 

CHIN: We went back and forth on what that opening scene would be, of course. I mean, that’s a common debate when you’re making a film, but I thought that it was just so raw and so real, and it was like, okay, we’re gonna just get right into it and show you what it’s actually like. And obviously, I think it grabs people’s attention, sets the tone, and I think it’s the reality of what she does. And I, I love that. I was a big proponent of opening with that scene because then, you know, we then juxtapose it to when she goes back home, you know? And I think that sets up the film and kind of the main – I wouldn’t call it conflict – but the challenge that, you know, Lynsey is, is facing through this film. And, and it’s actually something that I’m also very familiar with. I work in very high stakes and fairly dangerous environments, and it’s a, it’s kind of a weight that I understood from the beginning. And to just see it right off the bat and kind of, you know, set that tone was really important.

 

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SREENIVASAN: What is that conversation like in your heads when you are figuring out how to articulate this value structure that you have and why it’s so important for you to do the work that you’re doing? I guess, Lynsey, lemme start with you.

 

ADDARIO: I mean, it’s something that of course, I wrestle with all the time. And it gets – you know, kids go through phases where they’re more clingy sometimes, and other times they’re fine, they understand. And I think unfortunately right now with Alfred my 6-year-old, it’s every single day. You know, do you have to leave? How long do you have to go? Why do you have to go? The other day he asked, did you just come from a war zone? I mean, he’s six, so, you know, there’s definitely, there’s a lot. 

But what I try to explain to him is that this is part of who I am. This is my job. I love what I do. It’s a privilege, what I do, and it’s very important. And I will always come home. And I think that it’s important for me to express that it’s a positive thing. You know, I don’t want it to seem negative that I’m going off to work, because I do love what I do. And I think that there are, so, you know, there aren’t that many people who feel the great sort of passion and privilege for what they love to do, and Jimmy’s the same.

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SREENIVASAN: Yeah. Jimmy?

 

CHIN: One of my favorite quotes in the film is when Lynsey says, “kids are so much harder than war.” I, I’ve literally – mine isn’t war, but mine might be climbing the north face of Everest or something like that. And I’m just like, kids are so much harder than climbing at 26,000 feet. You know, sometimes it feels that way. But what Lynsey says really strikes a note for me, because I pretty much say the same thing and have the same intention behind how I talk to my kids about it. Because we are modeling, what I think, you know, I believe is a good, you know, way to approach life. It – you are lucky to find your calling. You’re lucky to find something that has meaning and gives you purpose and makes you wake up in the morning and be like, this is what I want to do. This is important to me. I feel like it has an impact on the world, a positive impact on the world, and I want my kids to live that way. I want my children to find something, to be passionate about something and to care about something. And if I can model that and say, Hey, look, you know, I will always love you. I love you today. I love you tomorrow, whether I’m here or not, but, you know, this is important work for me and, you know, I’m really grateful I’m able to do it.

 

SREENIVASAN: Lynsey, one of the stories that is profiled in the film as well, is a woman in Sierra Leone that you took a photo of and you kind of got a little bit involved in as a reporter, and this was earlier in your career. And then later in the film, we kind of see that there maybe was a payoff that you didn’t know about. Tell us a little bit about, was it, Mamma Seesay?

 

ADDARIO: Mamma Seesay. So, in 2009, I was named a MacArthur fellow, and I really wanted to do something focused with that grant. And I started researching, and maternal death was at extraordinary rates at that point. It was 2010, more than 500,000 women a year were dying in childbirth. And Sierra Leone had one of the highest numbers of women dying in childbirth. And so I went there and I went to the province where there were very few roads. There was one doctor in the entire province, and I went to the maternity ward where maternal deaths were very high. And as I walked in, I met Mama Sessay and she had been pregnant with twins. And the first baby she delivered in her village, and the second baby wouldn’t come out. And so her sister, who was a midwife, sent an ambulance for her. To get to that ambulance she had to take a canoe across a river and then an ambulance for six hours in order to get to the nearest hospital. 

 

And so I met her and we talked for about an hour, and then she finally delivered the second baby, and she was bleeding a lot. And I was shooting video as well for the first time, ironically, and you can hear me saying “she’s bleeding, is that normal?” And the midwives were just kind of mopping up the blood. And I said, is there a doctor? And they said, there’s one doctor in the whole province, but he’s in surgery. And I put my cameras down and I ran to the surgical ward and literally put on scrubs and went into the surgical ward and said, you know, “I think there’s a woman dying.” And he just looked at me like, obviously I’m busy. And so I ran back and I said, “I don’t know, pick her up and bring her to him.” And her blood pressure at that point was 60 over 40, I think. And by the time he came out of surgery, she died. 

 

And that story was published across eight pages in Time Magazine. And then a year later I got a message from a board member at Merck, and he said, can I please meet with you? And he said, you know, when we saw your story of Mamma Seesay, we distributed a copy of Time Magazine to every board member. And at the end of the meeting, which was where they were discussing corporate responsibility, they decided unanimously to start Merck for Mothers and put $500 million aside to fight maternal death. And it’s not exclusively because of that story, but certainly I think the visuals and the story of one woman who senselessly died in childbirth – it could have been prevented – really kind of spoke to them. And I think that that is the importance of, of journalism and of, of photojournalism. And to me, it really, you know, it’s what we all strive for when we cover these human stories.

 

SREENIVASAN: If, if Mamma Seesay is an example of something that kind of fulfills your soul and re– you know, recommits you to photojournalism, I’ve gotta ask also about Libya and where you and other colleagues were kidnapped and held for six days. 

 

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SREENIVASAN: And I wonder if surviving that, you know, what did that do to you when you came out of that? Did you think maybe this isn’t for me?

 

ADDARIO: Libya was brutal. I mean, Libya was it was me, Tyler Hicks, Anthony Shadid, and Stephen Farrell for the New York Times. And we were held for six days. And it was, it was, we were tied up, beaten up, blindfolded, punched in the face, the men were smacked on the back of the heads with gun butts. I was groped by basically every man who came across us, while blindfolded, which is obviously terrifying. And I think at the end of that a few things happened. First of all, I was really grateful that we survived. You know, our driver did not and I think it’s, it’s important to understand how lucky we were. Less than a month later, two of my very dear friends and our colleagues were killed in Libya. And I think, I think there’s so much that happens in war that, that you can chalk up to luck alone. You know, there’s no reason we should have lived. And so I think I think just understanding how lucky we were just gave me that sense that there is a reason why I am still here. 

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I knew that I would have to renegotiate, kind of, danger in a way that I wouldn’t get kidnapped again, of course. And that I couldn’t put my family through that again. Not only my husband – I didn’t have children at the time – but my parents and my sisters. And I think that that’s also important because we do this job, but we also put our families through a fair amount of trauma. And I think that that is something that I have to live with. And that’s why it’s almost impossible for me to watch the film because I can’t bear to watch my family talk about how much they’ve suffered because of the decisions I’ve made professionally.

 

And then I also realized that one thing that really got me through Libya was the fact that I have met and photographed so many extraordinary women over the years who have suffered sexual assault, they’re survivors of rape and, you know, under the most brutal circumstances, yet they had the courage to continue on. And I really thought of them in those horrifically dark moments, and they helped me get through it. And I think that that’s really important to have that knowledge and experience and to be able to use their human spirit and resilience to help me get through.

 

SREENIVASAN: So Lynsey, the Committee to Protect journalists has been tracking the number of journalists and media workers that have been harmed in the line of work for about 30 years now. And in 2024, they said a hundred and – at least 124 journalists and media workers were killed. And I guess that to me is, is there some sort of a fundamental shift here?

 

ADDARIO: Absolutely. I mean, when we, when I first started 25 years ago, I remember going into Afghanistan during the fall of the Taliban, and in Kandahar in 2001. You know, we were very clearly identified ourselves as journalists, as well as, you know, in Iraq when we moved around, we had press or TV put on our cars. And now that’s totally different. You know, not only is it kidnappings – you know, kidnappings have been on the rise for journalists to hold them for ransom, but also targeting killings of journalists who governments or international actors would like to silence. And I think it’s often happening with impunity. 

And of course, that was our concern in Libya because we could have been executed at any point. In fact, in the first 30 minutes we were laid face down on the ground execution style, and each of us had guns put to our heads. And I think, you know, it’s, it’s becoming more and more routine. And I think we see this in Gaza where, you know, at least 200 journalists have been killed according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. And I think it’s I think it’s unacceptable. No journalist should be killed for doing this job because we are doing a service for the public.

 

SREENIVASAN: Jimmy, I wonder what did doing this film about Lynsey, the type of work she does, going through huge archives of all of her work, what is kind of, what’s your takeaway from this? Both as, you know, a peer and a colleague and someone who’s kind of a fan, but also as a parent who also does some dangerous things.

 

CHIN: I think we made the film because we felt that her work is really important and extraordinary. And, you know, it really falls within the sphere of the stories that are really important to me, where it’s about the power of the human spirit. It’s about, you know, the pushing the edge of the human potential. And, you know, what she does, I think very much falls into that category. 

 

The films have to mean something to me ’cause we bleed for these films, you know, we work on them for years and years and years, and they have to say something important. I’m just, you know, inspired all the time with the work that I do, and I get to work with people like Lynsey.

 

SREENIVASAN: The film is called “Love and War.” It is streaming now on Disney +. Director Jimmy Chin, Lynsey Addario, thank you both for joining us.

 

ADDARIO: Thanks so much. 

 

CHIN: Thank you.