When TV news camerawoman Margaret Moth was shot through the face by a Serbian sniper in Sarajevo in 1992, her CNN colleagues were told that it was touch and go. One medic said that her face was so badly injured it might be better if she died. But not only did Moth survive, she went back to the frontline. “She didn’t do less war after she was shot,” remembers one colleague and friend. “She did more.” This documentary about her life, directed by the actor Lucy Lawless, is a fascinating portrait of a woman who had two mottoes: “no regrets” and “don’t be boring”.
With her jet-black hair, thick black eyeliner and army combat boots (which she slept in on the job) Moth looked more like a punk singer than a camera operator. Born and raised in New Zealand, she officially changed her name from Margaret Wilson to Margaret Moth in her 20s and went to court for her right to be sterilised: “I’m not a breeder.” She became the first female news camerawoman in New Zealand, then moved to the US, where she spent weekends skydiving, fooling around with hot long-haired hippies and dropping acid (there’s old home footage to prove it all). Eventually CNN hired her and Moth’s “ballsy” attitude won fans in the military; during the 1990 Gulf war she smoked cigars with General Norman Schwarzkopf.
“I never fully understood what was ticking inside of her,” says someone close to Moth. Sensibly, Lawless doesn’t overanalyse it. Growing up, Moth’s mother was violent, beating her and her siblings with belts and hairbrushes, which might explain her thing for taking on bullies. But doesn’t explain why her sister, interviewed here, looks perfectly nice and normal.
The shot in Sarajevo shattered Moth’s jaw, destroyed her teeth and most of her tongue. “Do I look like a monster?” she wrote from her hospital bed. There is less interview footage of Moth before the shooting; afterwards she became better known, and dabs away the drool as she speaks, meeting the world with her trademark eyeliner and defiance.
• Never Look Away is in UK cinemas from 2 December.
