‘The Other Half’ Director Giorgos Moutafis on Plight of Ukraine’s Refugees: ‘Nothing Has Changed’
variety.comChristopher Vourlias The intense shelling had already commenced when Greek photojournalist and documentary filmmaker Giorgos Moutafis arrived in Irpin, a suburb of Kyiv that lay in the path of Russia’s relentless military advance across Ukraine.It was in the midst of the chaotic evacuation on March 13 that Brent Renaud, an American filmmaker and journalist, was killed after he and his film crew were shot at by Russian troops.
Moutafis appeared on the scene just minutes later.“When we arrived in the city, we saw the rescue team evacuating the bodies.
I saw them carrying him inside a sheet,” said Moutafis, speaking to Variety by phone from Kyiv. “A little earlier I saw his friend, another photographer, Juan Arredondo [who was wounded in the attack].
I said to him, ‘Friend, what can I do to help?’ And he said, ‘Please find my friend, he was left behind.’ It was a terrible moment.” Moutafis, whose feature-length documentary “The Other Half” world premieres this week at the Thessaloniki Documentary Festival, has spent more than a decade chronicling the influx of refugees into Europe.
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