Ash Hawken

Ashley Hawken filming from the top of the then PAN AM Building. New York, 1962.

Welcome to AshHawken.com

December 29, 2020 / Ash Hawken / 4 Comments

This 1962 image of a young documentary producer, focusing on the wide world west of midtown Manhattan, is me in the first months of my 26-year career at the Television and Motion Picture Service of The United States Information Agency (USIA). That employment began after a 3-year Army hitch as a producer/director in the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service (AFRTS), with assignments in New York, Korea and Hollywood. USIA was followed by 25-years in the private sector as a principal and Executive Producer in Global Village Communications (GVC), a full service production company located in Old Town Alexandria. I stopped counting the number of documentaries with my name on the credits at about 250. The ones that are my favorites will appear on my blog over the next months. I hope that you enjoy them.

Delia Zapata and her company perform cumbia, celebrating Colombian heritage.

Enfoque: Las Americas – Our Creative America

March 25, 2026 / Ash Hawken / 2 Comments

In the 1960s, when Enfoque cameras were depicting Latin American reality, artistic expression flourished in the region and its performance was gaining worldwide recognition. Creative voices were projecting beyond national borders and shaping the international dialogue in literature, music, dance and the visual arts.

Enfoque: Las Americas – The Health of a Continent

February 11, 2026 / Ash Hawken / 1 Comment

This Enfoque program opens with children eagerly sharing their dreams for the future — a space pilot, a doctor, a nurse like her mother, a professor. Their ambitions—carpenters, actresses, soldiers, parents—reflect our universal longing for purpose and happiness. Our smiles at their answers express a hope that their dreams will come true.

A reader holds the front page of La Verdad.

Enfoque: Las Americas – Journalists in Action

January 10, 2026 / Ash Hawken / 1 Comment

Who decides what news reaches our eyes and ears? This question is at the heart of an ongoing global battle with consequences that shape our lives. Ever since Johannes Gutenberg revolutionized communication with the printing press, the power to spread ideas has shifted the fate of nations. Every choice about what stories are told—or hidden—helps define our society, our freedoms, and our future.

Behind the scenes with the “Paula” magazine team, Santiago, 1969.

Enfoque: Las Americas – The Woman of the New Decade

January 9, 2026 / Ash Hawken / 1 Comment

Step into the world of Latin America in the late 1960s—a time when women began to redefine their futures and break boundaries. While traditional roles in the home, nursing, and education remained respected, a new wave of trailblazers were emerging, taking leadership roles in the arts and journalism. Ambitious female students across Central and South America started pursuing studies in fields once reserved for men, and universities were graduating women in business administration, the sciences, and communications. Women-owned enterprises were capturing new markets, and women-led performance groups were dazzling critics on the international stage.

Promotional logo for Enfoque: Las Americas.

Welcome to Enfoque: Las Americas

December 5, 2025 / Ash Hawken / 3 Comments

MEET “ENFOQUE”

The Enfoque: Las Americas television series, produced by the Television Service of the United States Information Agency (USIA) from 1967 to 1970, consisted of twelve single-theme episodes, each approximately twenty-eight minutes long. The series was distributed in Spanish throughout Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America, with a counterpart, entitled As Americas em Foco, for Brazil. Although presented as a series, each episode was individually researched. Completed episodes were pouched to American Embassies in the region for television broadcast and private screenings. Each program was budgeted at $30,000 for production costs, exclusive of government personnel salaries, a dollar amount equivalent to $250,000 today.

Photo of steel men on girder — High-steel men like Leroy Dussett work above the waters of the Chesapeake Bay on a new suspension bridge. In the words of Leroy, "just about the prettiest kind of bridge you can build."

Stout Hearts Steady Hands

March 12, 2021 / Ash Hawken / 0 Comments

“Hands” is a film about folks that get up early, get dirty in their work and go to bed dog tired. They are the builders, the growers and the fixers that keep things working and moving. This film was made fifty years ago, but its subjects reflect a tradition deeply engrained in the American character.

“A Freedom Flight arrives in Miami from Varadero, Cuba” 1970. Photo: Esteban Martin, University of Miami Library.

10:10 EST: A Cuban-American odyssey

February 21, 2021 / Ash Hawken / 0 Comments

This morning’s “Freedom Flight” from Cuba will be airborne for thirty minutes. Its scheduled ETA in Miami is 10:10 Eastern Standard Time.

The film, narrated by Academy Award winning actor José Ferrer and directed by USIA producer Ash Hawken, documents the experiences of Cuban-American refugees seeking asylum in the United States after Fidel Castro’s 1959 establishment of a Communist regime on the island of Cuba. Filmed in 1970, 10:10 EST was originally a part of the “Ahora” Series, programmed on TV networks throughout Latin America. It was later adapted for worldwide distribution in multiple languages. Its English version is presented here.

Ash Hawken and crew in Bogota 1975 — Ash Hawken and crew filming "A Trip". Bogota, Colombia, 1975.

A TRIP: Profile of a drug producing country

February 4, 2021 / Ash Hawken / 2 Comments

This 1975 documentary, “A Trip,” written and directed by Ash Hawken, describes the impact that illicit drug trafficking has on a given country and its people. The crisis is described by the people who confront it every day; the government officials, the doctors; the addicts and, in a dramatic recreation, a trafficker whose dreams of easy money fail. Set in the Republic of Colombia, its production was a cooperative venture between that nation and the United States of America. Produced and distributed for world-wide use by the U.S. Information Agency in multiple languages, the film runs thirty minutes.

Aspen

January 2, 2021 / Ash Hawken / 1 Comment

“Aspen,” a 30-minute film produced by USIA in 1974, takes its title from the historic Colorado mountain village that began in the Nineteenth Century as a silver mining town and, through the Twentieth developed into a year-long recreation center for lovers of the outdoors and culturally minded visitors. Well known for skiing and winter sports, in the summer Aspen becomes a cornucopia of music, dance, and artistic expression. It is the summer home of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, Ballet West, The American Brass Quintet, and the Aspen Music School. Enjoyment of these and other performance groups await the viewer of this award winning documentary.

Producer Ashley Hawken and actor Kirk Douglas discuss the script before a recording session in New York City (December 1982).

Thanksgiving in Peshawar with Kirk Douglas

December 29, 2020 / Ash Hawken / 2 Comments

UPI ARCHIVES

NOV 23, 1982

Kirk Douglas in Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Actor Kirk Douglas arrived in Pakistan Tuesday at the invitation of President Mohammad Zia-ul-haq to draw attention to the Afghan refugee problem.

‘It’s a problem that needs more attention,’ Douglas, 64, said upon arrival at Islamabad Airport from Los Angeles.