New York, NY – April 2, 2025 – HANNAH ARENDT: FACING TYRANNY, a new feature documentary about the life and work of the German-American political philosopher and writer will premiere nationwide on June 27 at 9 p.m. ET on PBS (check local listings), pbs.org/americanmasters and the PBS App. A German version of the film will also air on SWR and RBB in Germany in the fall 2025, with worldwide distribution expected later in the Year. The film is produced by Jeff Bieber Productions, LOOKSfilm, SWR and RBB in association with American Masters Pictures and the Center for Independent Documentary. It is directed by Chana Gazit and Jeff Bieber. Arendt, who was one of the most influential and fearless political thinkers of the twentieth century, came of age in Germany as Hitler rose to power, before escaping to the United States as a Jewish refugee. Through her bravery, judgement and unflinching capacity to demand attention to facts and reality, Arendt's time as a political prisoner, refugee and survivor in Europe informed her groundbreaking insights into the human condition, the refugee crisis and totalitarianism. Her major works, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), The Human Condition (1958), Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (1963), On Revolution (1963) and Crises of the Republic (1972) remain among the most important and most-read treatises on the development and impact of totalitarianism and the fault lines in American democracy. Arendt’s reports on the trial of Adolph Eichmann also caused a firestorm of controversy, and its impact is still felt today. “Hannah Arendt was in an endless conversation with the human condition,” said Bieber. “Throughout her life she strived to understand the historic rise of Nazism and how it was able to garner such massive support through totalitarianism. Later, in the United States she warned how currents of authoritarianism continued to threaten democratic institutions. As authoritarianism threatens democratic countries across the world today, her writings – and warnings – deserve our attention.” “We think of Arendt as a German writer because she matured in Germany and was steeped in that philosophical tradition,” said Gazit. “But what’s so unique about her life experience is that she also became an American citizen and saw there too, with McCarthyism, the Vietnam War and Watergate, similar threats that for her exposed the fragility of democratic institutions.” While the film focuses on her books and essays, which are discussed on screen by international experts of her work, including Roger Berkowitz, Director of the Hannah Arendt Center for Politics and Humanities and UK Professor Lyndsey Stonebridge, professor of Humanities and Human Rights at Birmingham University, the film is also anchored in Arendt’s life experience, including her resistance against the Nazi regime, working to help Jewish children escape to Palestine, her relationship with the esteemed philosopher and Nazi Martin Heidegger and her time in a prisoner of war camp before fleeing to the United States. First person accounts by Hannah Arendt, her friends and colleagues (drawn from interviews, speeches, books, articles and personal correspondence), to on-camera interviews with scholars and students of Arendt, add texture to the film, evoking Arendt’s passion, intellect, wit and the profound impact she had on those who knew her. The acclaimed actress Nina Hoss (Barbara, Phoenix, A Most Wanted Man, The White Masai, Homeland, Tár), provides the voice of Hannah Arendt as a student in Germany to the 1970s. She and others bring to life revealing correspondence Arendt had on both sides of the Atlantic, with such 20th century luminaries as writer Mary McCarthy to philosopher Hans Jonas. LOOKSfilm, the German production partner, drew extensive materials from private collections of home movies as well as archives from newsreels and broadcast services, historical museums, state archives and libraries. Today, with the rise of authoritarian leaders threatening civil societies and democratic institutions across the world, The Origins of Totalitarianism has topped best seller lists once again. In Hannah Arendt’s words, “we must face what is happening now,” no matter how difficult or horrific.