Tim Hetherington, Indelible on Film

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Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington basked in the celebratory spotlight the night of the 2011 Academy Awards, where their groundbreaking film “Restrepo” was in the running for Best Documentary. While “Restrepo” did not take top honors, it made a powerful mark as one of the few films to delve deeply into the lives of men at war.

Less than two months later, Tim was dead.

Having gone to Libya to cover the uprising against Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, he and another photographer, Chris Hondros, died when government forces lobbed an artillery shell. Sebastian, who had been in New York at the time, was devastated by the death of his close friend and collaborator. Striving to make sense of the tragedy, Sebastian turned his video camera on the first people he encountered: the journalists who were with Tim the day he was killed.

“When people came in for Tim’s memorial in New York in May 2011, some were journalists who’d been with Tim during the attack,” Sebastian said in a recent interview. “So I just thought I wanted to talk to them, interview them about what had happened.”

Soon, his exploration of Tim’s death, and life, turned into a full-length documentary, “Which Way Is the Frontline From Here: The Life and Times of Tim Hetherington.” Backed by HBO, which also bankrolled “Restrepo,” it will run on April 18, two days before the second anniversary of Tim’s death.

Unlike most documentaries about journalists, it features an astonishing amount of footage that reveals new dimensions of Tim’s life and work. There is harrowing footage by James Brabazon of him under fire in Liberia’s civil war, and shots of him laughing and joking with children as he photographed in Sri Lanka; horsing around with soldiers in Afghanistan; and with his family and partner, Idil Ibrahim, dressed up for the Oscars.

Because of the widespread coverage of “Restrepo,” as well as of Tim’s winning major photography awards, there was “an enormous amount of material” that showed Tim discussing his work, Sebastian said. Tim was fascinated by the pervasiveness of technology and influenced by postmodern theory, so he would have been struck by the cellphone footage and hundreds of other clips included in the film.

Tim began his career in the late 1990s as a photographer, but soon branched out into the worlds of multimedia, film and fine art, becoming a “transmedia” journalist. Projects like “Sleeping Soldiers,” which made viewers see the child within the man at war, were transcendent and groundbreaking. “Diary,” a personal film that intercut scenes of conflict with scenes from back home in Britain, had a dreamy, slightly psychedelic quality. And his photographs from Libya focused both on the faux heroics of ill-trained rebels and on the daily rhythm of life in wartime.

Yet he resisted calling himself a photographer.

“Tim was trying to always think outside of the box and kind of at least surprise, if not shock people a little bit,” Sebastian said. “So he sort of made a great point of saying: ‘I don’t want to call myself a photographer. I’m an image-maker.’ But the truth is, most of his work was still photos, and they’re beautiful. They’re stunning.”

At the urging of HBO’s Sheila Nevins, Sebastian used hundreds of Tim’s photos in the film to great effect, exploring the creative photographic process and his daily working methods. In scene after scene, the viewer sees Tim in the field, holding his camera as chaos, violence and, occasionally, ordinary life swirl around him. Then the photo he was taking appears slowly on the screen.

From “Which Way Is the Frontline From Here: The Life and Times of Tim Hetherington,” by Sebastian Junger, courtesy of HBO.

Other scenes pluck Tim from the dense haze of mythology. A taller, Anglo-Saxon, artistic descendent of Robert Capa â€" the roguish Eastern European Jew who became photojournalism’s first dashing star during the Spanish Civil War and passed into legend when he stepped on a land mine in French Indochina in 1954 â€" he begins to reclaim his own humanity through “Which Way Is the Frontline.” The film shows vividly what a joy it was to be around Tim, with his impish humor and generosity.

“I don’t think it was a technique he used. I think it was actually him in the world,” Sebastian said. “He did it with or without a camera. He just connected to people. He really wanted to know how people felt. He was interested in people’s emotional reality, and it’s because, among other things, he was very curious and he was very empathetic.”

Indeed, while others were climbing the career ladder in a sometimes cutthroat profession, Tim was doting on students from the Milton Margai School for the Blind in Sierra Leone. Young photographers and interns, used to being ignored by industry luminaries, reported unfailingly that, upon introduction, Tim spent long periods asking them about their interests, looking over their portfolios and offering practical advice.

There has been some debate among war journalists about whether Tim flew too close to the sun. Did he not have sufficient respect for the gods of war The film raises the question obliquely, but quickly moves on. The fact is that in modern conflicts, the front lines can be as blurred as the causes of war itself. Journalists who are lauded for bravery one day can be criticized the next, when fate takes a cruel turn.

But Tim was not a cowboy, Sebastian said. That was evident when he saw footage of Tim’s first encounter with the chaos of combat in Liberia.

“When I watched the footage, I realized how absolutely crazy it was out there, and he really kept it together,” Sebastian said. “In other words, he was really quite brave. During his first time out in combat, he looked like he was a seasoned expert.”

Sebastian has been trying to honor his friend’s memory in more concrete ways, too. With increasing numbers of freelancers heading into conflict zones, he started Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues to provide in-depth combat first-aid training. So far, 72 reporters have taken the training, which is free.

“Tim’s wound wasn’t necessarily mortal. He just died from loss of blood, from a shrapnel wound to his groin,” Sebastian said. “So I thought I should start a medical training program just for freelance war reporters, experienced war reporters.”

Through interviews, combat footage and photos, “Which Way Is the Frontline” portrays a man who expanded what photography could do and how visual stories could be told. Sebastian hopes this portrait of his friend and colleague will give viewers a new respect for those who venture far afield to cover conflict.

“There’s a very, very cynical and often kind of ugly characterization about journalists making the rounds these days,” he said. “You know, this sort of, ‘Mainstream media and journalists are sort of self-serving vultures.’ And I want people to realize that the news that they depend on and consume every day is gathered by people who are risking their lives for it, and occasionally dying for it.”

Tim Hetherington/Outpost Films, via Associated Press “Restrepo” directors Sebastian Junger, left, and Tim Hetherington in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley during the filming of their documentary in 2007.

Mike Kamber is the co-founder of the Bronx Documentary Center, which was inspired by Tim Hetherington.

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