Byron Hurt
Award-Winning Filmmaker
Byron Hurt combines his award-winning documentary films with a dynamic speaking style and the unique ability that challenges audiences to question and redefine manhood in American culture regardless of race, class, or culture.
Hurt has over two decades of experience navigating discussions about masculinity with high- profiled NCAA athletes, members of the U.S. military, fraternities, and everyday men and women throughout the world. He strengthened and honed his gender politics while working with the Mentors in Violence Prevention Program (MVP), and pioneering the Bystander Intervention Program he co-founded with Jackson Katz, Ph.D.
Hurt’s presentations focus on how representations of masculinity in popular culture normalize male violence; how heteronormative masculinity performed by all races contribute to gender oppression: how homophobia and transphobia make LGBT communities vulnerable to male violence: how positive male leadership and bystander intervention can end gender-based violence: and how to use male privilege to ally with women and girls to redefine masculinity and promote healthy relationships.
About The Program
Hurt is widely recognized as a leading voice and thought leader in independent filmmaking, and is available to speak to your audience about his films, and in hosting enlightening Q&A’s following screenings.
His highly acclaimed documentary Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, which provides a riveting examination of manhood, sexism, and homophobia in hip-hop culture. It remains as popular today on college campuses as it did when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and broadcast national on PBS’ Emmy award-winning series Independent Lens.
His film HAZING offers a deeply personal look inside the culture, tradition, and secrecy surrounding hazing rituals in fraternities and sororities, sports teams, marching bands, the military and beyond. HAZING aired nationally on the PBS broadcast of Independent Lens.
Soul Food Junkies premiered on PBS offering audiences a fascinating exploration of the soul food tradition, its relevance to black cultural identity, and its continuing popularity despite the known dangers of high-fat and high calorie diets.
Many descendants of enslaved people have very little record of their family’s ancestry. Lee and Liza’s Family Tree that aired on PBS’ award-winning series NOVA explores with the help of scientists and genealogists of how Hurt’s family went on a quest to discover their history and see how science and genealogy can assist to rebuild a family tree broken by slavery.
Exclusive Lecture Representation
