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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIt might not be surprising that the History Channel is planning to air an eight-hour docu-series on the life of President John F. Kennedy next month to mark the 60th anniversary of his assassination. You might be very surprised to learn that the filmmaker who researched, shot, wrote, edited and scored much of the documentary is 23 years old, having been born a year before 9/11.
Ashton Gleckman grew up in Carmel and attended local schools, although his ambition to work in the film industry was so great that he left Carmel High School after his sophomore year to work for a collective of film and TV composers. He decided to become a documentarian after a short stint working in Los Angeles, and by the age of 19 had created the award-winning documentary “We Shall Not Die Now” about survivors of the Holocaust.
In this week’s edition of the IBJ Podcast, Gleckman discusses what he found so resonant about Kennedy that he embarked on the three-year project without any guarantee the finished product would win national distribution. (Along the way, he picked up a producing partner in the Academy Award-winning firm Radical Media.) Gleckman also lays out milestones in his lightning-fast and unusual rise as a filmmaker, as well as the reasons he thought the world—and in particular post-Kennedy generations—needed a deep dive into the life and legacy of the 35th president.
And you can read more about Gleckman in this new profile by IBJ’s Dave Lindquist.
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Meh: by age 23 I had accomplished . . . nothing. Very impressive.
I appreciate the effort and can’t wait to see the documentary. But we will never get to the truth about why the CIA murdered a sitting President on US soil until we get all of the unredacted document the US Government has, and we may never get the truth because of documents destroyed. The bullet to the frontal cortex with a rear exit wound from a crude French made bolt action rifle shot from behind the President (book depository) defies logic and physics!
Who ever wanted Kennedy dead is very well connected in high places and there is lots of speculation and after 60 years the truth is but a few important details away!