Brent and Craig Renaud
Welcome to IDA Member Spotlight, a monthly interview series highlighting IDA members and showcasing the depth and diversity of our community. This month, we had the pleasure of speaking with Craig Renaud.
Craig Renaud and his late brother, Brent (aka the Renaud brothers), are best known for their vérité documentaries that tell the stories of people caught in the middle of conflicts around the world. Brent Renaud was pursuing this very mission when he became the first American journalist killed in Ukraine in 2022.
The Renaud brothers learned how to survive in war zones while working with legendary filmmaker Jon Alpert. They spent the next two decades filming in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Egypt, Libya, Haiti, Mexico, and Honduras. They were the first filmmakers to embed with soldiers for an entire deployment during the war, filming their ten-part series Off to War (2004) in Iraq. Off to War won an IDA Award for Best Series and an Overseas Press Club Award.
The Renaud brothers won their first DuPont Columbia Award and Edward R. Murrow Award for the New York Times’s “Surviving Haiti’s Earthquake: Children” (2011). The film followed two injured children throughout the 2010 earthquake. The Renauds won their second DuPont for their groundbreaking investigative reporting on Mexican cartels’ gun smuggling across the U.S. border, Vanguard’s “Arming the Mexican Cartel” (2013). They won a Peabody Award for Last Chance High (2015), which followed children for five years in Chicago’s dangerous West Side. The Renaud brothers’ HBO films Dope Sick Love (2005) and Meth Storm (2017) placed viewers uncomfortably into the heart of America’s drug epidemic while humanizing the addicted. Their HBO film Little Rock Central High: 50 Years Later (2007) took a controversial look at one of the most famous high schools in America.
The Renaud brothers’ last project together, Armed Only With A Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud (2025), is nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short Film.
IDA: Could you share a bit about your background and the experiences that shaped who you are as a storyteller?
CRAIG RENAUD: I grew up in Arkansas. I was the youngest of three, with older siblings Brent and Michele. Brent and I were closest in age. We were latchkey kids in the early 80s, and had to entertain ourselves while our parents both worked. Our parents bought a Super 8 film camera. That was the beginning of our storytelling. Inspired by movies like Stand By Me, Brent and I would spend long summer days exploring the deep woods and railroad tracks that run parallel to the Arkansas River. We dreamed of traveling the world together someday. In our limitless imaginations, the Arkansas River was the Nile, and we were navigating treacherous territories. Brent and I both left Arkansas after graduating from high school and began our travels. Brent studied in Europe and made his first attempt at filming in Cambodia. I lived in Mexico and Costa Rica, studying anthropology and Spanish. We always had a camera in hand, but we needed a mentor. In the late 90s, we moved to New York City.
IDA: When did you begin working in the documentary field, and what initially inspired you to pursue it?
CR: Our documentary careers started in 1997 at the Downtown Community TV Center (DCTV) in NYC. My brother Brent had seen a documentary by DCTV’s founder, Jon Alpert, and was so inspired that he went the next day to beg for an internship. I followed Brent to DCTV, and eventually, we started working for Jon as his editors and cinematographers. Jon believed in us and gave us our first big break as directors in 2001. Our directorial debut was Dope Sick Love for HBO, with Jon as our executive producer. Soon after we finished Dope Sick Love, 9/11 happened. Jon sat us down and told us he was headed for Afghanistan. That began our careers covering conflicts. For the next two decades, we filmed in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Egypt, Libya, Haiti, Mexico, Honduras, and eventually Ukraine.
IDA: Congratulations on the Oscar Nomination for your deeply moving and impactful film, Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud. Could you tell us a little about the film?
CR: On March 13, 2022, my brother Brent Renaud was killed by Russian soldiers. He was the first American journalist to die while reporting on the war in Ukraine. I recovered Brent’s body and his final recordings from Ukraine and brought them back to our childhood home in Arkansas. I filmed the journey home as a way to pay tribute to Brent and to all the fallen journalists who have lost their lives while trying to document the truth about war. The film also chronicles the twenty-plus years that Brent and I spent covering some of the world’s most dangerous conflicts.
That footage includes the year we were embedded with the Arkansas National Guard in Iraq, the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, the worst car bomb in the history of Somalia, civilians killed by American bombings in Afghanistan, teenage migrants journeying from Honduras to the United States, and Brent’s last filming in Ukraine just prior to being gunned down by Russian soldiers.
IDA: When did you begin working on Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud?
CR: I began working on the film the day that Brent was killed in Ukraine. Brent and I had many conversations during dangerous times about what we would do if one of us were killed or kidnapped. We made a promise to each other that we would always keep filming. So when Brent was killed, I knew exactly what he would want me to do.
It was also clear that if I didn’t go to Ukraine, my family would not be able to retrieve Brent’s body. And our colleague Juan Arredondo was badly injured and stuck in a hospital that was being bombed. Filmmaker Christof Putzel traveled with me to Ukraine, and we documented our journey to bring Brent and Juan home. That included seeing my brother’s dead body for the first time, after he was shot in the neck. I knew Brent would not have wanted me to shy away from showing what violence and war do to people. The murder of a journalist is a war crime that is almost always carried out with impunity. My brother’s murder needed to be documented for the world to see.
IDA: What has been the film’s reception, and does it resonate with the impact you hoped it would inspire?
CR: The film’s reception has been incredible and overwhelming for me, Juan, and our families after the loss of Brent. HBO has stood firmly behind us in a time when many networks are ducking their journalistic responsibilities. With worldwide distribution on HBO Max, the story of Brent’s life and death is reaching millions of people in all corners of the globe. The impact is beyond what I hoped for when I first started filming. We had our theatrical release at DCTV’s Firehouse Cinema, where Brent and I began our careers. For seven straight nights, the theater was packed with renowned journalists who came to pay their respects to my brother.
We have also partnered with the Committee to Protect Journalists, which is promoting the film to raise awareness of the increased risk to journalists. Since Brent’s death, there have been more than four hundred journalists killed around the world. Sadly, 2025 was another record-breaking year. According to CPJ, it is the most dangerous time on record to be a journalist. We hope this film can help end the impunity of killing journalists and help protect free speech at home and abroad.
IDA: For our members who are eager to watch Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud and stay connected with your work, what’s the best way to see the film and follow your upcoming projects?
CR: Armed Only with a Camera: The Life and Death of Brent Renaud is now streaming on HBO Max. The best way to follow my upcoming projects is through my website (www.renaudbrothers.com) and Instagram (@renaudbrothers). Our family also established the Brent Renaud Foundation (www.brentrenaudfoundation.org), focused on mentoring emerging filmmakers and supporting journalists.
IDA: Looking ahead, what’s next for you? Are there any upcoming projects you can share with us?
CR: Now that Brent is gone, I’ll be working closely with Juan Arredondo. Juan was badly injured in the attack that killed Brent, and together we made Armed Only With A Camera to honor him. We are currently developing ideas together with HBO. I’m also directing a PBS series called Southern Storytellers, and writing a screenplay and a memoir.