LEO HURWITZ
HEART OF SPAIN 1937
In A Dictatorship Human Hearts Don’t Matter  

Leo Hurwitz Heart of Spain In a Dictatorship Human Hearts Don't Matter

In a dictatorship, human hearts don’t matter. Leo Hurwitz shows this frightening reality in his powerful film, Heart of Spain 1937. America is now in a fight similar to that of Spain’s democratically elected republic against fascist General Francisco Franco. We need a conduit of empathy similar to Dr. Norman Bethane’s blood transfusions to soldiers in…

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LEO HURWITZ
A Pioneer In The Beginnings Of America’s Documentary Film Part 3
A Radical Filmmaker In The Making

Leo Hurwitz Radical Filmmaker in the Making

 “Leo Hurwitz’s task in life: creating and practicing the documentary film tied intrinsically to the quest for human freedom, liberation, equality, and truth.” Tom Hurwitz, Leo’s son. In 1926, Leo went to Harvard. This was quite an achievement for the Jewish son of working-class immigrants. Yet remarkably in line with the family’s intrinsic belief in, equality.…

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LEO HURWITZ
A Pioneer In The Beginnings Of
America’s Documentary Film Part 1
Leo Hurwitz’s Family Influences

Leo Hurwitz's Family Influences

Leo Hurwitz (1909 – 1991), a pioneer documentary filmmaker, was part of a small group who founded America’s documentary film. Notably, Leo and his colleagues invented the social documentary form. According to his son, Tom Hurwitz, Leo’s films “exemplified a new way of making films about the real world. And about ideas that help us…

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