Private Project

No Ordinary Life

In field dominated by men, five pioneering camerawomen, Mary Rogers, Cynde Strand, Jane Evans, Maria Fleet and Margaret Moth went to the frontlines of wars, disasters and revolutions to find the truth. As colorful as accomplished, they made their mark by capturing some of the most iconic images from Tiananmen Square to the Arab Spring uprising, but the world doesn't know it was women behind the camera. In the midst of unfolding chaos, the pictures they took both shocked and informed the world. With behind-the-scenes footage, woven together with their personal stories and a rich archive, our film documents their extraordinary story.

  • Heather O'Neill
    Director
    Help Us Find Sunil Tripathi, Planet in Peril, CNN Presents, Discovery Channel - Nuclear Sharks
  • Rich Brooks
    Cinematographer
    CBS 60 Minutes, CNN Presents, Discovery Channel - Nuclear Sharks
  • Neal Broffman
    Editor
    Welcome to Pine Lake, Help Us Find Sunil Tripathi, CNN International
  • Patrick Kirst
    Composer
    Welcome to Pine Lake, The Kissing Booth, Breaking Surface,
  • Heather ONeill
    Producer
    Help Us Find Sunil Tripathi, Planet in Peril, CNN Presents,
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Feature
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 15 minutes 55 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    March 1, 2021
  • Production Budget:
    300,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    Egypt, France, Italy, United Kingdom, United States
  • Language:
    English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital Canon 4k, Beta tape
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Tribeca Festival
    New York
    United States
    June 16, 2021
    World Premiere
  • Tribeca Film Festival
    New York
    United States
    June 16, 2021
    World Premiere
Director Biography - Heather O'Neill

Heather O’Neill is an Emmy and Peabody Award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker. No Ordinary Life, her directorial debut on a feature documentary film, premiered at the 2021 Tribeca Festival and aired as part of the CNN Films franchise in 2022.

In 2015 she traveled to Bikini Atoll to direct and produce a shark conservation special with Philippe Cousteau Jr. for the Discovery Channel. She also produced the feature documentary Help Us Find Sunil Tripathi, which screened at the Hot Docs International Film Festival and film festivals around the world. A family’s search for their missing son and the hunt for suspects in the Boston terror attack become tragically intertwined in this film about truth and the power of social media.

With CNN Presents, the award-winning documentary series, she directed and produced more than twenty documentaries. For over a decade she spearheaded projects for CNN around the world, from melting glaciers in Greenland, to conflicts across the Middle East, to the danger journalists face covering the drug trade in Mexico.

She directed and produced CNN’s Planet in Peril series, where she traveled with Dr. Sanjay Gupta across Africa and China to investigate the impact of climate change. She also produced Christiane Amanpour's award-winning film, Generation Islam. She has earned more than a dozen journalism awards, including three Emmy Awards and multiple Peabody Awards.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

As a college student in 1989, I was gripped by the demonstrations in Tiananmen Square, China. The images of young people rising up, calling for democracy and freedom of speech, revealed to me the power of storytelling and put me on a path to become a journalist. Two decades later, I would meet Cynde Strand, one of the few Western photojournalists who filmed the night of the Tiananmen Square massacre. I hadn’t imagined that a woman was behind the camera.

Women bring an important dynamic and experience to storytelling. Mary, Jane, Cynde, Margaret and Maria wanted to tell stories about what was happening around the world. Stories that informed and awakened us in our very homes. I wanted to make a film that allowed the audience to be immersed in the experience of being behind the camera, through their point-of-view. The sounds, the signs, the reading of faces, the split-second decisions, and their sense of what was about to unfold.

The wars and crises they covered produced images that can be difficult to watch, so I strived to create a balance of stories and images, to keep the audience engaged. The shifting scenes between the inhumanity and beauty they filmed, woven with their moments of humor, illustrate how they tried to cope with all they were witnessing. There wasn’t an understanding of PTSD as there is today, they just had the support of each other.

Cynde, Maria, Jane, Mary and Margaret took the images that defined history for their generation, yet their own stories have not been told, until now.