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Lee Hirsch's debut feature documentary, Amandla! A Revolution in Four-Part Harmony has taken him more than nine years to research, develop and shoot. The film covers 50 years of South African history and how song played an integral part in provoking social change under the apartheid rule.

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Hirsch first became interested in the anti-apartheid movement during high school when one of his friends, an exiled black South African, taught him freedom songs and told him tales of oppression under apartheid. Hirsch became a member of his school's student Board of Trustees and very active in the anti-apartheid movement. In 1990, he also joined American Indian Movement leader Dennis Banks in The Sacred Run across 14 European countries.

Hirsch began his film career with the documentary short The Last and Only Survivor of Flora, an intimate portrait of his 94-year-old grandfather who was the last Jewish survivor of his native town in Poland. The film was a finalist in the Worldfest Houston Film Festival, and has been featured in the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival and the Toronto Jewish Film Festival.

While working on Amandla! Hirsch lived in Johannesburg for almost five years. In 1994 he was honored for his work by the ANC (African National Congress) and asked to join their national choir for their performance at President Mandela's inauguration.

While in South Africa, Hirsch became a prolific director of music videos for renowned South African artists including TKZee and Bongo Maffin, for whose video he was honored with a National Television and Video Association (NTVA) Avanti Award for Best Video of the Year. He also served as the South African-based producer for the CNN Worldbeat one-hour special on South African music.

Hirsch was the New York-based segment producer on the documentary feature Blue Note, The Story of Modern Jazz. The film, which chronicled the emergence of modern jazz in the U.S. and the development of the Blue Note jazz label, was honored with a 1997 Peabody Award for excellence.

Hirsch was born and raised in Long Island, New York, and is a graduate of the Putney School in Vermont. He attended Hampshire College and the New York Film Academy.