Vale Hugh Kitson, a lion of our civilisation

It was with profound sadness that I learned today that my friend Hugh Kitson—a lion of our civilisation—had passed away.

Some deaths cause us to pause. Others leave us with the unsettling sense that a pillar has been removed: that someone who had stood watch for many years is no longer at his post. Hugh’s passing feels like that. A courageous voice has fallen silent. A faithful witness has completed his watch. A light-bringer has left us, and the world seems a little darker for his departure.

Hugh Kitson devoted more than half a century to filmmaking. Across a remarkable career, he was involved in more than 200 productions as an editor, director, writer and producer, earning numerous international awards. Yet statistics alone cannot capture the measure of the man. Hugh understood that film was not merely entertainment. In responsible hands, it could preserve memory, expose falsehood, recover neglected history and illuminate truths that powerful interests would often prefer to leave buried.

For more than four decades, he applied that conviction to Israel.

His documentaries included The Forsaken Promise, From Exile to Restoration and Give Peace a Chance. Through these and other productions, Hugh explored the Jewish people’s historical connection to their ancestral homeland, the promises made and broken by governments, and the extraordinary restoration of Jewish sovereignty after centuries of dispossession, persecution and exile.