October 23, 2023

Carmel filmmaker, 23, prepares to air 8-hour JFK documentary on History Channel

50 minutes

It 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 podcast, Gleckman discusses what he found so resonant about Kennedy that he embarked on the three-year project by doing his own fundraising and without any guarantee that 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.

The IBJ Podcast is brought to you by Taft.

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