The death of Lithuanian documentarian Mantas Kvedaravicius in occupied Mariupol became known on April 3. Mantas was abducted by the Russian military when he tried to help civilians evacuate from the city. The reason for his detention was his Lithuanian passport. A few days later, Mantas’s wife found his body with gunshot wounds to his head and chest. He was lying down on the roadside in Mariupol. Kvedaravicius was 45 years old.
Mantas Kvedaravicius had an M.A. in Cultural Anthropology from Oxford University. His first documentary tells the story of Chechnya demolished by the war (“Barzakh”, 2011). It premiered at the Berlin Film Festival and was awarded the Amnesty International Film Prize. In 2016, Kvedaravicius released “Mariupolis” – his documentary about the city which a year before had ended up in the epicenter of the Russo-Ukrainian war. The film was screened at the Berlin Film Festival.
