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A new documentary featuring never-before-seen photos of Pres. Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy and their family is about to screen in the place fondly remembered as Camelot.
Capturing Kennedy, a film about Jacques Lowe, the Holocaust survivor who became the personal photographer to JFK before and during his presidency, will be shown this Sunday at the D.C. Independent Film Forum, a festival that opens today in the nation’s capital and runs through Monday, Feb. 17. Steele Burrow directed the film. Watch the trailer below.
“When [Lowe] first started photographing the Kennedys,” his daughter Thomasina recalls in the trailer, “my father was really young. A trust was built.”
Lowe documented the glamorous Kennedys as JFK ran for president in 1960 and continued his photographic work after Pres. Kennedy took office in January 1961.
“Drawing on newly uncovered historic interviews and unprecedented access to Lowe’s personal estate and archives, this documentary chronicles his remarkable journey from surviving the horrors of World War II to capturing some of the most iconic photographs of the Kennedy era,” notes a synopsis. “Through Lowe’s unique lens, Capturing Kennedy sheds light on one of the last untold chapters of the Kennedy Presidency and the young photographer whose images shaped it.”
The documentary screening comes after Pres. Trump signed an executive order on January 23 that mandates the release of more documents related to the assassination of Pres. Kennedy in 1963, and the assassinations of his brother, Robert F. Kennedy, in 1968 and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. the same year. On Monday, the FBI said it had found an additional 2,400 records related to the assassination of JFK after acting on Pres. Trump’s executive order.
Lowe’s work includes striking images of JFK and Jackie in public and private moments, photos of the couple with their young daughter Caroline, and one of the most famous images of Jackie Kennedy ever taken, showing her in a bright yellow-and-white checked dress. Another shows a smiling Jackie in bathing suit and cap next to a small capsized boat in a body of water. JFK stands next to her, in swimtrunks.
“Lowe is able to show Kennedy all over the country – big cities, small towns,” comments Prof. Fredrik Logevall, who appears in the film, “doing the hard work that is necessary if you’re going to run for president.”
The documentary also explores how a large portion of Lowe’s archive was destroyed in the attack on the World Trade Center on 9/11.
“After the terror attack, Jacques Lowe’s daughter, Thomasina, campaigned to try and retrieve her father’s archive from the twin tower’s rubble before they were razed,” the Guardian reported in a 2013 article. “Amazingly, the safe in which they were stored was found intact, but the contents – over 40,000 negatives – were reduced to ash. All was not completely lost though, as 1,500 of Lowe’s contact sheets were located elsewhere in New York.”
Capturing Kennedy is directed by Steele Burrow, produced by Burrow, Miriam Horn, Andrew Lawton, Kelly O’Donnell, and Keith Soucy. It is written by Burrow, Erin O’Connor, and Kelly O’Donnell. Cinematography is by Jason Chua, Kevin McCormick, Steele Burrow, and Adela Wagnerova.
Watch the trailer for Capturing Kennedy below.
