Saul Landau
Saul Landau (January 15, 1936 – September 9, 2013) was an American journalist, filmmaker and commentator. He was also a professor emeritus at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, where he taught history and digital media.
Saul Landau

Institute of Policy Studies · flickr · CC BY 2.0
- Name
- Saul Landau
- Born
- January 15, 1936
- Birthplace
- New York City, U.S.
- Died
- 9 September 2013
- Place of death
- Alameda, California, U.S.
- Education
- University of Wisconsin, Madison
- Spouse
- Nina Serrano Rebecca Switzer
- Occupation
- Journalist, filmmaker
- Nationality
- United States
- Honours
- Emmy Award · George Polk Award
- Languages
- English
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Saul Landau (January 15, 1936 – September 9, 2013) was an American journalist, filmmaker and commentator. He was also a professor emeritus at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, where he taught history and digital media.
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In this article
Key facts
Key facts
• Name — Saul Landau • Born — January 15, 1936 • Birthplace — New York City, U.S. • Died — 9 September 2013 • Place of death — Alameda, California, U.S. • Education — University of Wisconsin, Madison • Spouse — Nina Serrano Rebecca Switzer • Children — 5, including Greg and Valerie • Occupation — Journalist, filmmaker
Education
Education
Landau was born in the Bronx, New York City. A graduate of Manhattan's Stuyvesant High School, he also earned bachelor's and master's degrees in history from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Landau donated his Latin American-related films and papers to the University of California, Riverside Libraries in 2005. He donated his early papers and films to the Wisconsin Center for Film and Television Research.
Career
Career
Landau authored 14 books, produced and directed over 50 documentary films, and wrote editorial columns including for the Huffington Post. Landau was a member of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. He frequently appeared on radio and TV shows. In the early 2000s he hosted Hot Talk, a weekly TV-radio show, for Cal Poly Pomona. Gore Vidal said, "Saul Landau is a man I love to steal ideas from." Landau was a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) in Washington, D.C. and a senior fellow and former director of the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. He received an Emmy for his film Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang (1980), which he co-directed with Jack Willis, with cinematography by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Haskell Wexler. He won the Edgar Allan Poe Award 1981 for "Best Fact Crime" for Assassination on Embassy Row (with John Dinges; Pantheon 1980) about the murder of TNI Director Orlando Letelier and their colleague and friend Ronnie Karpen-Moffitt. He received the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award for his life's contribution to human rights and also received the Bernado O'Higgins award. In the early 1960s, he was a member of the San Francisco Mime Troupe and wrote the play "The Minstrel Show." At that time he was also working as a film distributor.
Death
Death
Landau died after battling bladder cancer for two years on September 9, 2013, at his home in Alameda, California. He was 77.
Identity and overview
Identity and overview
The following is established of the heading itself.
Places
Named by the record
Places
Only places the record itself states, plotted where the house gazetteer settles their coordinates. Nothing is inferred from a name or a nationality.
The Bronx.
Birth place
Alameda.
Death place
Books
• The Bisbee deportations: class conflict and patriotism during World War I, University of Wisconsin—Madison, 1959 * • Landau, Saul, Jacobs, Paul, & Pell, Eve, To Serve the Devil, Volume 1: Natives and Slaves Vintage Books, 1971. • Landau, Saul, Jacobs, Paul, & Pell, Eve To Serve the Devil – Volume 2: Colonials and Sojourners Vintage Books, 1971. * • They Educated the Crows, Transnational Institute, 1978 – a Transnational Institute Report on the Letelier-Moffitt Murders * * • My Dad Was Not Hamlet: Poems, Institute for Policy Studies, 1993 • The guerrilla wars of Central America: Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala, St Martin's Press, 1993, • Hot air: a radio diary, Pacifica Network News/Institute for Policy Studies, 1995 – Saul Landau, Christopher Hitchens, Pacifica Radio • Red Hot Radio: Sex, Violence and Politics at the End of the American Century, Common Courage Press, 1998 * * • - with Gore Vidal. In this book, he defines his position on the 2006 Cuban transfer of presidential duties, Cuba in the 1960s, Raúl Castro and his opinion on the U.S. concerning Cuba • Saul Landau (2013). Stark in the Bronx: A Detective Novel. CounterPunch Books.
Films
Landau's films are distributed by Round World Productions. His 1968 film "Fidel" is distributed by Microcinema. • Losing just the same (1966) • Fidel (1968) • From Protest to Resistance (1968) • Que Hacer/What is to be Done? (1971) – Saul Landau, Raúl Ruiz, James Becket, Jaime Sierra, Nina Serrano. • Conversation with Allende (1971) • Brazil: A Report on Torture (1971) • Robert Wall: Ex-FBI Agent (1972) • The Jail (1972) • Zombies in a House of Madness (1972) – Shot in the San Francisco jail. • Song for Dead Warriors (1974) – A documentary about the Wounded Knee occupation in the spring of 1973 by Oglala Sioux Indians and members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) • Who Shot Alexander Hamilton (1974) • Castro, Cuba and the US (1974) • Zombies in a House of Madness (1975) – A short film where jail house poet, Michael Beasley, reads his poetry alongside footage taken inside the San Francisco jail, in 1972. • Land of My Birth (1976) – The campaign film for Michael Manley in Jamaica. • Bill Moyer's CBS report on CIA and Cuba (1977) • The CIA Case Officer (1978) – A documentary about John Stockwell, a former CIA official who served in the CIA for 12 years, mostly in Africa and Vietnam. The film won an Emmy Award (1980), George F. Polk Award for investigative journalism on TV, Hefner First Amendment Award for journalism, and the Mannheim Film Festival first critics' prize. • Paul Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang (1979) – A political documentary about government suppression of the health hazards of low-level radiation. Paul Jacobs died from lung cancer before the documentary was finished. His doctors believed he contracted it while he was investigating nuclear policies in 1957. Jacobs interviewed civilians and soldiers, survivors of nuclear experiments in the 50s and 60s, testing the effects of radiation. • Steppin (1980) – A documentary about Michael Manley on his tour in Jamaica, during election time. • Report from Beirut (1982) • Target Nicaragua. Inside a Covert War (1983) • Quest for Power (1983) • The Uncompromising Revolution (1988) • Report from Iraq (1991) • Papakolea (1993) • The Sixth Sun: Mayan Uprising in Chiapas (1996) • Maquila: A Tale of Two Mexicos (1999) – A documentary about the corporate globalization on the US-Mexican border. • Iraq: Voices From the Street (September 2002) • Syria: Between Iraq and a Hard Place (2004) • Will the Real Terrorist Please Stand Up (2012) • "WE DON'T PLAY GOLF HERE – and other stories of globalization"
Reception and standing
The scholarly and documentary record stands as follows.

Saul Landau with longtime friend Haskell Wexler, the filmmaker, and Rita Taggart at the 1999 Letelier-Moffitt Awards.
Institute of Policy Studies
Awards
• Bernardo O'Higgins Award for Human Rights • Letelier-Moffit Human Rights Award • George Polk Award for Investigative Reporting • Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage (2013) • Emmy Award • Roxie Award for Best Activist Video • Hugh M. Hefner First Amendment Award • Mannheim Film Festival: Critics' First Prize • Ann Arbor Film Festival First Prize • Berlin Film Festival First Prize • Best Director Award First American Indian Intercontinental Film Festival • Golden Apple Award • Best Picture North Carolina Smoky Mountain Film Festival • Edgar Allan Poe Award, for "Assassination on Embassy Row"
References
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Died at
1- AlamedaPlace
Established from a fact already recorded on a verified source.
Studied at
1- University of Wisconsin–MadisonOrganisation
Established from a fact already recorded on a verified source.
The Encyclopedia exists whether or not anything is for sale. Corrections are recorded rather than overwritten, and every version of this record is kept. Published 20 August 2026.
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