Hirsch says he first became interested in the subject of freedom songs as a high school student in the late 1980s, when one of his friends, an exiled South African, discussed the oppression in South Africa and taught him some of the songs.

Hirsch points to his own Jewish background as a further personal connection to the victims of apartheid.

“I’m surprised there’s not more empathy in the Jewish community as a whole, given our history,” he says.

His last film was a profile of his 94-year-old grandfather, a survivor of the Holocaust.

Amandla is a compilation of personal interviews, musical performances, reenactment and original clippings from newsreels and films of rallies.

“I want the film to touch people no matter how much they know or don’t know about the story,” Hirsch says.

No single type of footage dominates Amandla.

Images and songs are allowed to present themselves, appearing with minimal explanation and subtitles. The frames practically drip with color, as though every object within them bursts with the same energy and vitality reflected by the nation as a whole.

“There is a fantastic creative chemistry between music and visual and it can be used to tell a story,” executive producer Sherry Simpson writes in the film’s notes.

That lofty goal wasn’t easy to achieve. Hirsch spent nine years on the film, five of them on location.

“South Africa became my second home,” Hirsch says. “The people put so much faith into me as an outsider to make their story told.”

And it was not easy to secure funding.

“Raising the money was by far the most difficult part of the production process.”

Nearly as difficult, though, was culling the 200 hours of collected footage into a finished product.

Hirsch credits editor Johanna Demetrakas with the achievement.