Writers or Filmmakers Who Were Murdered as a Direct Result of Their Art

While undoubtedly providing inestimable spiritual rewards, true artistic freedom can also result in some artists paying the ultimate price for their expression: getting killed for their art. Obviously, no one is ever deservedly murdered “as a direct result of their art” – the blame lies squarely with the perpetrator of the crime. Like other noteworthy figures who were murdered for ruffling feathers and speaking back to power, the courage (and achievements) of those who die for their art is always worth celebrating and remembering.

Below is a list of murdered filmmakers, writers, and artists who refused to give in to the forces of tyranny. From actively subverting fascism to critiquing the patriarchal world of art, these artists are the ones whose bravery and trenchant social commentary benefit us all.

Performance artist, visual artist, and filmmaker Ana Mendieta is known for her fearless, startling work, which was as grounded in hard reality as it was in poetic suggestion. Her films, which often featured the female body in states of ambiguous distress or transformation, were feminist statements that were relevant to both the male-dominated art world and the world at large.

Courageous, outspoken, beautiful, and a non-conformist to the core, Mendieta was not the type of person most would think of as being “susceptible” to abuse. Nonetheless, she became involved with – and eventually married – Carl Andre, a sculptor whose work was far inferior to hers. Many in the art world felt that Andre was pathologically jealous of Ana's talent. One article in the Guardian, paraphrasing an account from a fellow NYC artist of the era, described him as “cold and detached,” and pointed out that Mendieta's “star was in the ascendancy as [Andre] was entering a period in which demand for his work fell and prices dipped accordingly.”

Mendieta's work often featured bloodsplattered forms that looked as if they'd fallen from great heights … all of which makes the way she met her actual end particularly disturbing. She died on September 8, 1985, after plunging to her death from the 34th floor of her New York City apartment. According to the Guardian, “When the police arrived, they found the couple's bedroom in a mess and Andre with scratch marks on his nose and arms. His initial statements differed from his recorded message to the emergency services. He was arrested and later charged with murder." Andre was eventually acquitted on the grounds of “insufficient evidence.” The likelihood of a famously passionate, life-loving artist committing suicide (or falling to her death accidentally), however, remains as questionable as ever. Fortunately, Mendieta's work lives on in wide circulation.

Filmmaker and ecological activist Joan Root was widely acclaimed for her beautiful documentary nature films and work on behalf of animals. Her film Mysterious Castles of Clay, made in collaboration with her husband, was nominated for an Oscar, and she and her spouse famously introduced Gorillas in the Mist's Dian Fossey to her beloved apes. 

After divorcing her husband and moving on from their cinematic collaborations, Root began to focus her attention on anti-poaching efforts around Lake Naivasha in Kenya, where she lived. She was assassinated in January of 2006 by men who came to her home and gunned her down; many suspected that her anti-poaching efforts, as well as her work as a filmmaker, had called too much negative attention to the local poaching “economy,” thus inhibiting black market dealers' ability to "make a living."

Indeed, Root had been the recipient of several death threats; her home was also vandalized and burglarized, and many had urged her to leave Lake Naivasha, but she refused to abandon her work. The four men initially accused of killing her pleaded not guilty and were (somehow) acquitted, and her murder remains unsolved. Or, one might say, unprosecuted. 

Visionary director, novelist, and poet Pier Paolo Pasolini famously revolutionized cinematic extremity in his brilliant, unprecedented, appalling masterpiece Salò. The film, which was based, in part, on the Marquis de Sade's controversial novel The 120 Days of Sodom, is also a scathing indictment of Italian fascism, and some have suspected that its political criticisms might have “contributed” to the beloved Italian director's death. On November 2, 1975, Pasolini was violently murdered by way of being repeatedly run over with his own vehicle. The driver, who fled the scene and was later taken into custody, was 17-year-old Pino Pelosi, a hustler who initially claimed that he'd acted in self-defense after Pasolini tried to sexually assault him.

However, few people believed Pelosi's story, and the horrific nature of the murder (the director's body had been partially burned) suggested systematic execution rather than impromptu struggle. Indeed, in 2005 ... a full 30 years later ... Pelosi finally retracted his statement, claiming that he had only made it because his family had been threatened by the men who had actually orchestrated Pasolini's assassination. In his new version of events, Pelosi maintained that he and the director had, in fact, been ambushed by “at least six other people who had arrived in two cars, and on a moped.”

All of this supports the widespread assumption that Pasolini was indeed “murdered by a group of neo-fascists, either because of his radical views and his homosexuality, or because his creative work was seen as a threat by the Christian Democrat-dominated establishment.” (The last day of Pasolini's life was also the subject of an acclaimed film by American director Abel Ferrara, which featured Pasolini-lookalike Willem Dafoe in the titular role). 

French writer Robert Desnos will always be remembered for his stunningly beautiful poetry, but the circumstances of his death have left even more of an impact. Born in Paris on the 4th of July, 1900, Desnos was a key figure in the surrealist movement; he knew Jean Cocteau, Salvador Dali, and other luminaries of the era and was featured in surrealist-founder Andre Breton's novel Nadja.

As Europe began to unravel under the Nazis, Desnos joined the resistance movement, promoting anti-Nazi journalism and penning anti-fascist articles. Already under suspicion for being an "uncooperative" artist, he was arrested by the Gestapo in February 1944, and, after initially begin sent to Auschwitz, eventually ended up in Theresienstadt, the “artist's” concentration camp housed in Czechoslovakia.

Desnos survived the camp's liberation, but died of typhus on June 8, 1945. However, he would have died before then, had he not managed to outwit and confuse his captors via the power of creativity. A holocaust survivor who had once watched him “being taken away from the barracks where he had been held prisoner” left the world this moving story that testifies to Desnos's ability to save lives in the concentration camp simply through his exuberance, story-telling abilities, and use "of his imagination" to bring joy and wonder to those around him.

On November 2, 2004, Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh (a distant relation of painter Vincent) was brutally murdered by 28-year-old psychopath Mohammed Bouyeri. Bouyeri, an Islamic extremist, claimed to have slaughtered van Gogh in the name of “Allah.” The Dutch director had recently released a short film, Submission (made in cooperation with scriptwriter and feminist activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali) that was critical of radical Islam's treatment of women.

According to witnesses, Bouyeri initially fired shots at van Gogh as he cycled through an Amsterdam street, and after the filmmaker fell to the ground, he crossed the road and stabbed him several times before impaling a note to his chest with the knife. Bouyeri was apprehended and sent to prison for life, but van Gogh's work has only become more of a symbol of freedom, liberation, social conscience, and artistic integrity since the attack.

Artist, author, and “openly gay, anti-fascist resistance fighter” Willem Arondeus is one of the most important figures in anti-Nazi history. Nevertheless, he's still largely unknown. Originally a visual artist, Arondeus later turned his attention to vivid, imaginative fiction, publishing the novels The Owl's House and The Blossoming Winter Radish, which he also illustrated. When the Nazis began to infiltrate the Netherlands, he quickly became an active part of the resistance movement, joining a group that was dedicated to providing forged identity papers to Dutch Jews so that they could escape. He also played an instrumental role in writing and distributing anti-fascist information and in spreading the word about anti-Nazi resources.

In 1943, however, Arondeus facilitated a great act of heroism: he devised a plot to blow up a Gestapo office where thousands of records on “undesirables” were being compiled and stored. Arondeus and his co-conspirators (who included several notable musicians and writers of the time) successfully carried out the attack, and on the evening of March 28, the Nazi warehouse “burst into flames in Amsterdam. By dawn, scattered bits of paper shone through the charred rafters of the collapsed roof." The records, which had “held Dutch citizens' names, recorded by the Nazis to keep tabs on the occupied Netherlands,” were no more.

The Nazis captured Arondeus and the others in quick succession, but the author still tried to save his friends by taking full responsibility for the attacks. He never regretted his actions, and his last words to the Gestapo were “homosexuals are not cowards.” Which is about as heroic and boldly fabulous as last words get.

On April 4, 2011, filmmaker and activist Juliano Mer-Khamis was assassinated as he attempted to drive home, accompanied by his infant son and the child's babysitter. The murderer was determined to be Mujahed Qaniri, an alleged member of the terrorist organization al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades. Qanuiri approached Khamis and shot him five times; his son and the babysitter survived the attack.

Khamis was the founder of Palestine's controversial Freedom Theater, an institution dedicated to staging productions that “often reflect, comment upon and challenge the realities of contemporary Palestinian society, while exploring various forms of artistic expressions." The theater was known for staging many potentially "incendiary" productions, including an adaptation of George Orwell's Animal Farm. According to the London Review of Books, after the Orwell staging, “Juliano realized he had enemies, not just critics. The production was designed to shock. Actors appeared on stage dressed as pigs, violating Islamic taboo.”

Khamis, always aware of (but undaunted by) the risks he was taking, had predicted (jokingly) that he would eventually be killed for "corrupting the youth of Islam.” His murder was condemned by Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas, and his death was widely mourned by actors, writers, and artists all over the world. 

Danish filmmaker and producer Finn Norgaard was murdered in February 2015 and has since been widely praised for the heroically selfless way in which he met his demise. Norgaard had been attending a conference entitled “Art, Blasphemy, and Freedom of Expression” in Copenhagen when, midway through the event, a terrorist burst into the lobby and opened fire with an assault rifle. The filmmaker was murdered while attempting to stop the perpetrator. 

As Douglas Murray, writing for the Gatestone Institute, aptly observed, “the word 'brave' is so overused in the film industry that it's easy to forget what the word actually means.” Murray also points out that “had Norgaard not struggled with the gunman and bought precious extra seconds for the police and others, it is likely that the number of fatalities at the free-speech event would have been far higher.” 

Filmmaker and photojournalist Christian Poveda was known for his riveting, disturbing, humane, and complex documentary films about El Salvadorian gangs. Never an artist for one-dimensional portrayals, Poveda connected deeply with his subjects, and, according to the Guardian, got to know them “intimately, practically living with them to capture their initiations, tattoo sessions, drugs taking, killings, and funerals.”

However, some argue that this same dedication may have contributed to the filmmaker's death. In September 2009, Poveda was murdered in El Salvador; the killers were publicity-hostile members of the gang he had profiled in his acclaimed documentary project La Vida Loca. Two of Poveda's four assassins were given 30-year sentences. Another two got 20 years for being accessories, and one policeman was jailed for telling the gang (falsely) that Poveda had been an informer masquerading as a filmmaker.

La Vida Loca, which premiered at the San Sebastian International Film Festival to rave reviews, continues to be an influential and important contribution to cinema and sociology.

Czech artist Karel Hasler was a courageous opponent of the Nazi regime, as well as a celebrated actor, songwriter, and film and theater director. A major figure in the early 20th-century Prague cabaret scene, Hasler transitioned into movies at the dawn of the silent film era. He appeared in films directed by Martin Fric, Přemysl Pražský, and other notable cinematic pioneers.

As the Nazis came into power, Hasler got “on the Nazi radar” for his celebration of artistic freedom as well as his patriotic songs, which bravely “criticized the Nazi regime and created a rise in anti-German sentiment among the Czechs.” He was eventually betrayed and turned in by one of his colleagues, and, at the age of 62, was arrested and sent to the Mauthausen Concentration Camp, where he died in December of 1941.

Throughout the war, Hasler's song Ta naše písnička česká (“This Czech Song of Ours”) became the unofficial/underground rallying anthem of the Czech people, and his songs, in general, are still widely celebrated as universal (and patriotic) anthems of resistance, courage, and morale.