HANNAH ARENDT: FACING TYRANNY

HANNAH ARENDT: FACING TYRANNY explores the extraordinary life and works of one of the most influential and fearless political thinkers of the twentieth century. Hannah Arendt’s experience as a political prisoner, activist, refugee and survivor informed her breathtaking insights into the rise of totalitarianism, the banality of evil, and the crisis of democracy.

December 2025 marks the 50the anniversary of Hannah Arendt’s death, but her work has never been more relevant than today. Against the background of the global rise of authoritarian rule, her precise and witty writings have developed a haunting urgency, and her adventurous biography serves as a model for a dignified and compassionate life in face of fascism.

Supported by the award-winning PBS series “American Masters” HANNAH ARENDT: FACING TYRANNY tells Arendt’s life story as she bears witness to the ravages of antisemitism, the excruciating effects of two World Wars, the rise of totalitarian terror, and ultimately as she identifies the fault lines in the democracy of her beloved adopted homeland, the USA.

The story is brought to life through a rich and immersive visual palette of archival film and photographs, designed to bring the viewer inside the drama. Renowned actress Nina Hoss gives voice to Arend’s own words from her books, lectures and essays, but also from her intimate correspondence with friends, lovers and adversaries.

Lesser-known experiences – her dramatic escapes from fascism, her work resettling Jewish refugees during WWII, and her return to Europe to locate and rescue literature, art and Judaica looted by the Nazis – brings a deeper resonance to Arendt’s belief that thinking is derived from experience.

She would go on to write and lecture about the U.S. government’s deception about the Vietnam War, student protests, the Watergate scandal, and the civil rights movement. And as she died in 1975, it is left to our imagination what she would think about the state of the world we live in today.