War photographer tells harrowing stories in new National Geographic documentary about her life

Over the course of her 25+ year career as a photographer, Lynsey Addario has covered just about every major conflict and humanitarian crisis. She has been kidnapped, shot at and watched people die in front of her. Her photographs and stories have won Pulitzer Prizes. And when she’s not in war-torn countries, she is home with her husband and sons, navigating school pick-up and family life. The struggle to balance both aspects of her life has been a tough one. And she’s telling her story in the National Geographic documentary, “Love + War.”

On The Red Carpet spoke with Addario and “Love + War” co-director and co-producer Chai Vasarhelyi about the documentary and why she chose to step in front of the camera.

“The timing seemed right,” Addario said. “I had seen so many depictions of war photographers and war correspondents and I never felt like I was getting, I never felt like it was nuanced enough. You know it was a very one dimensional portrayal of, often, a man. And everything seemed a bit glorified and I just really felt like it was time to show a different perspective of a war correspondent and a war photographer and it felt important that it was a woman.”

Vasarhelyi was already a fan of Addario’s work, so to team up with her on this project was a dream come true.

“There’s something really special about speaking to a journalist about this type of project. Because Lynsey knows what it takes to make a good piece of work in that candor, the commitment required, the access required and there was almost instantly a shorthand about that,” Vasarhelyi said. “And I think there is also this working mom shorthand about how tricky it is to navigate these different worlds.”

“Love + War” tells Addario’s story, from her beginnings in the business to the time she was kidnapped to cameras following her to cover the beginning of the Russia/Ukraine conflict in 2022. In one scene, gunfire is heard as she snaps a photo of a young Ukrainian boy riding his bike with his mom walking by his side.

At one point in the doc she says, “I have to constantly weigh, ‘what will I risk my life for?'” And she admits it’s always “for civilians.”

We also see Addario’s life at home, with her two young sons and her husband, former journalist Paul de Bendern, where the struggles are a little less traumatic – school lunches, bath time and bonding with the boys. And while her photos tell harrowing stories of war and conflict, how she approaches her children with the realities of war is very different.

“I have a six year old and Lucas is almost 14. Lucas is very aware of what’s going on in the world,” Addario said. “You know he asks me, it’s a very rudimentary question, but he says ‘is there a chance you can get killed?’ And I don’t want to lie. But I also don’t want to be like, ‘yeah it’s all luck.'”

“I try to carry all of these stories with me. Like, I don’t want to forget them. I don’t want to black them out. For me, it’s really about paying tribute to the people that I photograph in the stories that I document. And so I try to be very present when I’m in the field and be, you see in the film that I cry a lot,” Addario explained. “I think, for me, that’s a very important part of my work. And the flip side of that is when I get home, I have to be present as a mother and as a wife and really, you know, be present in that realm. And so it’s not like I definitely compartmentalize, but I also carry both worlds with me. I just try to really be present when I’m home and be present in the field.”

“It was a tricky one. And I think it really just kept on coming back to the sheer power of Lynsey’s character and how she bridges these worlds and negotiates her way through it,” Vasarhelyi said. “There’s a way of knitting this all together that we kept on just returning back to like Lynsey’s truth and like what was important to her and how it’s the good fight and the moral courage it takes and you know, and that was always our center.”

“I think that’s why we called it ‘Love + War,’ it’s like this idea that you can’t separate this person from the work and it’s not that Lynsey is a fragmented person. No. She’s a complex individual that brings all of these things together,” she continued.

“Love + War” is streaming now on Disney+ and Hulu.

The Walt Disney Company is the parent company of Hulu and this ABC station.