Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College to Screen Hudson Valley Premiere of Margarethe Von Trotta's Film Hannah Arendt on April 29

ANNANDALE-ON-HUDSON, N.Y.— On Monday, April 29, the Hannah Arendt Center of Politics and Humanities at Bard College will host a film screening of the biopic, Hannah Arendt. Directed by renowned German filmmaker Margarethe von Trotta, the biopic was recently screened at the Toronto International Film Festival, and has just been nominated for six LOLA awards, Germany's version of the Oscar. The event will take place at 7 p.m. in Olin Hall on the Bard College campus and be followed by a discussion with the film's screenwriter, Pam Katz; Barbara Sukowa, the actress who portrays Arendt in the film; and Roger Berkowitz, academic director of the Arendt Center. The screening and discussion are free and open to the public. The film will be released by Zeitgeist Films in the United States. The Bard screening marks its Hudson Valley premiere. The event is made possible by the Irving and Gloria Schlossberg Family Fund of the Community Foundation of the Hudson Valley.

The film centers on influential German-Jewish philosopher and political theorist Hannah Arendt. Her reporting on the 1961 trial of ex-Nazi Adolf Eichmann in The New Yorker—controversial both for her portrayal of Eichmann and the Jewish councils—introduced her now-famous concept of the “banality of evil.” Using footage from the actual Eichmann trial and weaving a narrative that spans three countries, von Trotta beautifully turns the often invisible passion for thought into immersive, dramatic cinema. Arendt had a longstanding personal relationship to Bard. Her husband, the philosopher Heinrich Blücher, taught at Bard for 17 years; Arendt often lectured at the College, and she and Blücher are buried in the Bard Cemetery. A large portion of Arendt’s personal library is housed in the Hannah Arendt Collection at the Charles P. Stevenson Jr. Library.

The Hannah Arendt Center of Politics and Humanities at Bard College is a unique institution, offering a marriage of nonpartisan politics and the humanities. It serves as an intellectual incubator for engaged thinking and public discussion of the nation's most pressing political and ethical challenges. Public discourse is the bedrock of our democracy. Amid the cacophony of media pundits and the proliferation of think tanks, the Hannah Arendt Center is singular in its approach: we address politics free from the jostling over policy. The Arendt Center offers an institutional space for passionate, controversial, yet nonpartisan thinking that reframes and deepens the fundamental questions facing our nation and our world. In the spirit of Hannah Arendt, the Center’s mission is to encourage people to “think what we are doing.” For more information, visit www.bard.edu/hannaharendtcenter.

Hannah Arendt is the leading thinker of politics and the humanities in the modern era. No other scholar so enrages and engages citizens and students from all political persuasions, all the while insisting on human dignity, providing a clear voice against totalitarianism, and defending freedom with extraordinary intelligence and courage. Writing for both a scholarly and a lay audience from deep within the humanities tradition, Arendt bequeathed us the idea of the “banality of evil,” insisted that facts be protected from the corrosive force of opinion, and called us to the highest ideal of political citizenship. She is that rare writer who compels her readers to think and rethink their most fundamental ethical and political convictions.

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(4/4/13)

This event was last updated on 04-08-2013

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