Forever Activists

Forever Activists: Stories from the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade is a 1990 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. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.[1]

Forever Activists
Directed byConnie Field
Judith Montell
Written byYasha Aginsky
Phil Cousineau
Judith Montell
Narrated byRonnie Gilbert
Edited byYasha Aginsky
Distributed byTara Releasing
Release date
  • 1990 (1990)
Running time
60 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Summary

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 is 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.

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See also
Other documentaries about Jewish activism

References
  1. "NY Times: Forever Activists". NY Times. Retrieved 2008-11-19.
  • Canby, Vincent (June 14, 1991). "Forever Activists (1990)". New York Times. Retrieved August 25. Check date values in: |accessdate= (help)


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