Hannah Arendt: Facing Tyranny

Synopsis

Hannah Arendt: Facing Tyranny is a feature documentary about the extraordinary life and work of Hannah Arendt, one of the most influential and fearless political thinkers of the twentieth century. Born to a middle-class Jewish family in 1906 in Hannover, Germany, Hannah is a brilliant and fearless young woman whose philosophical writings emerge directly from her dramatic and often terrifying experiences, coming of age as Adolph Hitler rose to power, then finding her way to the United States as a Jewish refugee. Through her bravery, judgement, and unflinching capacity to make the facts welcome, Arendt transformed her time as a political prisoner, refugee and survivor in Europe, along with her observations of America during the McCarthy Era and the Vietnam War, into thoughtful and daring insights into the human condition, the refugee crisis, democracy and totalitarianism, which continue to resonate more than a half century later.

About Directors

Jeff Bieber

Executive Producer, Writer, Director is a 40-year veteran of public media. His films and social impact campaigns include Avoiding Armageddon (8-hours, 2003), My Journey Home (2-hours, 2004), America At A Crossroads (12-hours, 2007), The Jewish Americans (6-hours, 2008), Latino Americans (6-hours, 2013), Italian Americans (4-hours, 2015), The Pilgrims (2-hours, 2015), and Asian Americans (5-hours, 2020). He has earned two national Emmy Awards, a duPont-Columbia Award, and three Peabody Awards. Jeff Bieber Productions was created in 2022. Projects include Dante, a 4-hour series directed by Ric Burns (April 2024), The Harvest, a 2-hour film for American Experience (September 2023), Weaving Nature (April 2024) and Hannah Arendt – Facing Tyranny. Projects in development include Liz Diller: Making Space for the Future for American Masters, slated for 2026.

Chana Gazit

Director and Producer is an award-winning documentary producer, director, and writer. Her work has been honored with multiple EMMY nominations and three EMMY Awards. Additionally, her work has been recognized by, among others, the Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Journalism Awards, the Peabody Awards, the Writers’ Guild Awards, and the Sundance Film Festival. Films include Franklin Roosevelt (4-hours) and Lyndon Johnson (4-hours). PBS series, American Experience: Chicago ‘68, Surviving the Dust Bowl, Meltdown at Three Mile Island, Fatal Flood, The Pill, Test Tube Babies, The Forgotten Plague, and The Codebreaker. Healing and the Mind with Bill Moyers, Slavery & the Making of America, Destination America, This Emotional Life, Soundtracks, a look at the social movements of the last half-century through the lens of music. Ballerina Boys, and Big Pharma (6-part series).

Artistic Statement

The core questions we seek to answer in our film are the same questions that Hannah Arendt wrote about in her introduction to Origins of Totalitarianism: “The crisis of our time has brought forth an ever-present danger that is only too likely to stay with us from now on. The questions that my generation has been forced to live with… What happened? Why did it happen? How did this happen?”

While Hannah Arendt was writing about totalitarianism during World War II and the Holocaust, Arendt’s statement, that totalitarianism, “is only too likely to stay with us from now on” feels more resonant today than ever before.

Political violence, racism, and antisemitism are not new phenomena, but the normalization of extremism and violence in the United States today is startling and reveals stark dangers that we face in our country. After covering the January 6th riot to stop the peaceful transfer of power for the President of the United States (for PBS), I started reading the works of Arendt to help understand what was occurring in our country. How can ordinary men and women subscribe to the violence and lies of those in political power to stop the government’s peaceful transfer of power?

The Trump phenomena shows that a large segment of Americans embrace conspiracy theories, lies, and authoritarianism while disregarding social and democratic norms that have guided this country since its founding. The fragility of our democracy has been on full display in the last decade, and today, the jury is still out on how, or if, our republic will survive. It is important that we learn from Hannah Arendt’s life’s experience–to become politically engaged–and from her works, that resonate today more than ever.

As Arendt writes in Origins, we must face up to reality, whatever that may be. While it may not happen again in the same way that it happened in Germany, it’s likely that the same need that totalitarianism answered, the need for meaning and purpose through a movement, is going to come back. And it may come back in different forms, but we must be prepared for it. We have to understand it in order to resist it.

Festivals, Screenings, & Awards

– PBS (2025)