What war really is: the testimony of two highly appreciated and respected war photographers. Moderated by Marta Serafini.
Paul Conroy
Paul Conroy is a photojournalist and documentary-maker, who began his career in the military. He has worked in warzones all over the world, taking photographs and making films for the BBC, Sky TV and the Sunday Times, amongst others.
Conroy was one of the first journalists to enter Libya when the uprising there began in 2011, and his talents meant he was soon teamed with the Sunday Times’ Marie Colvin, hailed as the greatest war reporter of her generation. The pair smuggled themselves into the besieged city of Misrata at a time when most of the foreign press corps had decided it was too dangerous to stay. They ended up covering the brutal shelling of the city for two months, longer than any other journalist team. He spent the next six months working in Libya with Colvin, before working together again in Syria in early 2012 to report on the atrocities being committed. It was to be the pair’s last assignment together. Colvin was killed in a rocket attack in Homs, Syria in February 2012.
Paul was hospitalised for four months on his return to England where he underwent twenty three operations to repair the damage to his leg. Since then he has written Under The Wire (Quercus, September 2018), a novel of his final assignment in Syria, acted as a consultant on a film of the same name and also worked as a consultant on A Private War, a Hollywood biopic of the life of Marie Colvin.
