Forever Activists

Infobox Film
name = Forever Activists


image_size = 150px
caption =
director = Connie Field and Judith Montell
producer =
writer =
narrator =
starring =
music =
cinematography =
editing =
distributor =
released = 1990
runtime = 60 min.
country = United States
language = English
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id =
imdb_id =http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099598/

"Forever Activists: Stories from the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade" is a 1990 Academy Award nominated documentary film by Connie Field and Judith Montell that shares interviews with seven American veterans of the Spanish Civil War who fought for the Loyalist cause during the war and went on to live lives of activism.

ummary

The film makes the point that for many of the men and women who fought in the Spanish Civil War it was just one of a series of continuing social struggles that they believed in.

The scene-setting material (old newsreel clips) is familiar, but veterans' faces and their stories seem ever new and raw, even when it's apparent that the same tales have been told many times before. All of those who testify are creatures of the Great Depression, idealistic and dedicated to improving the lot of the people President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed as his fellow Americans.

The film's highlight is a reunion of the veterans in Spain in 1986, on the 50th anniversary of the war's outbreak. It looks to have been both a picnic and a time for summing up. Yet the film's most moving moments come when the veterans recall their treatment when they went home after the war.

Passports were revoked, and for many their membership in the brigade was to cost them jobs and reputations for decades to come. Most, it seems, absorbed the shocks and went on to fight on behalf of labor, civil rights and the peace movement during the Vietnam War.

References

*cite news
last =Canby
first =Vincent
title =Forever Activists (1990)
language = English
publisher = New York Times
date =June 14 1991
url =http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/18220/Forever-Activists/overview
accessdate = August 25

ee also

*Jewish volunteers in the Spanish Civil War
*Spanish Civil WarOther Documentaries about Jewish Activism:
*"Professional Revolutionary"

External links

* [http://www.tjctv.com The Jewish Channel]
* [http://www.brandeis.edu/jewishfilm/Catalogue/films/foreveractivists.htm National Center for Jewish Film]
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099598/ IMDb page]
* [http://www.facets.org/asticat?function=buyitem&catname=facets&catnum=/39090 Facets Multi Media]