Leo Hurwitz

Leo Hurwitz

Directing
1909-06-23
New York, New York

Biography

Son of a Russian anarchist, Leo Hurwitz graduated Harvard summa cum laude and became a leader in New York’s left wing film movement from the early 1930s on. In the Workers’ Film and Photo League, NYKino, and Frontier Films, Hurwitz remained the quintessential politically committed cameraman, editor, writer, and director.

Known For & Full Filmography5 Titles

#1Dialogue with a Woman Departed

Movie - 1980, 2h 15m as Himself

7.9 / 10
Documentary

A documentary about the film-maker's wife and co-worker, Peggy Lawson, who died in 1971.

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#2Leo T. Hurwitz: Filme für ein anderes Amerika

Movie - 1980, 2h 15m as Himself

8.8 / 10
Documentary

Documentary about American filmmaker Leo Hurwitz.

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#3Strand, Under the Dark Cloth

Movie - 1989, 2h 15m as Self

6.6 / 10
Documentary

This documentary studies the life and artwork of photographer Paul Strand, using his own compelling photography as well as interviews with his friends, acquaintances and third wife. Documentarian John Walker explores the various influences Strand encountered throughout his life that helped him to develop as an artist. His personal life and relationships are examined and shed light on the inner working of this man who achieved great renown while hiding "under the dark cloth."

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#4Message to Man

Movie - 1989, 2h 15m as Self

8.8 / 10
Documentary

In January 1989 the first Message to Man International Film Festival took place in Leningrad. This film, made during the festival, is a record of its events, guests and participants, such as the American director Leo Hurwitz, the Latvian director Ivars Seleckis, and the ballerina Natalya Makarova, among others. It also shows the “engine room” of the festival: the work of the main office and the PROKKa professional cinematographers’ club, guests being greeted and seen off. A charity evening with Natalya Makarova, a memorial service to commemorate the victims of the war and excerpts of documentary films presented at the festival are also featured.

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#5Discovery in a Landscape

Movie - 1970, 2h 15m as Narrator

8.8 / 10
Documentary

Following his use of art, painting and sculpture, in his work of the previous decades, Hurwitz took on a project for the American Foundation of the Arts aimed on deepening and enriching, for art students, the way in which we see. Working with his second wife, the editor Peggy Lawson, he made four short films comprising The Art of Seeing Series. The films, made without words, are beautiful poems to the pleasure of sight. This is the second part of his series.

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