Eighth-grade Greely documentary filmmaker draws attention to Ken Burns

For David Gilbert, an aspiring filmmaker and Greely Middle School eighth-grader, the Americans With Disabilities Act isn’t just an abstract policy. TThe groundbreaking 1990 law has ensured Gilbert, who is severely dyslexic, receives reasonable accommodations at school, including the ability to use text-to-speech technology. “My brother is also autistic, so the ADA meant a lot to us,” Gilbert said.

In tribute to the law and the disability rights movement, Gilbert produced a film – “The ADA: A Turning Point in Ensuring Access to Civil Rights” – for a National History Day competition. National History Day, a nonprofit educational organization, encourages the learning of history through competitive research projects.

His ten-minute film received the recognition and praise of none other than Ken Burns, one of the most important American documentary makers.

Gilbert’s film won third place in the individual junior division (grades 6-8) at the 2024 Next Generation Angels Awards. The Better Angels Society, an organization that promotes education and community involvement through documentary films, is partnering with National History Day to celebrate the to award prizes. The awards are intended to reward “well-researched historical filmmaking modeled after famed documentary filmmaker Ken Burns.”

Gilbert had the opportunity to fly to Washington, DC for a ceremony at the Library of Congress, where he met Burns in person. The ceremony was “definitely the fanciest thing I’ve ever been to,” he said. “They had hors d’oeuvres and if you looked up you could see the beautiful artwork above you.”

Later, award winners also had the chance to have a Zoom session with Burns to talk about their films. Gilbert said it was “incredible” to “have the greatest documentary filmmaker of all time talk to you about your documentary, and know that he watched it.”

Gilbert said he was struck by Burns’ insight. “I was just watching it when he knew exactly what you were having trouble with. Something I struggled with… is that it’s very difficult to tell a story when there isn’t a person or a real event involved, but a slow, gradual grassroots effort. He knew that was difficult,” he said.

The film opens with a news broadcast from July 1990 announcing that the Senate has passed its version of the ADA. President George HW Bush would sign the law later that month, banning discrimination against America’s largest minority in everyday activities.

Gilbert’s story walks the viewer through how we arrived at that moment in 1990. “Throughout history, disability has been seen as a problem that required a solution, rather than as an integral aspect of identity,” Gilbert said. The film discusses the forced sterilization of people with disabilities in the early 20th century, and other laws that effectively excluded people with disabilities from society.

Later, disabled activists and people began organizing, adopting Civil Rights Movement tactics such as sit-ins and rallies, including a March 1990 rally in support of the ADA, during which demonstrators got out of their wheelchairs and climbed the stairs . to the US Capitol. “The so-called silent minority was not so silent anymore,” Gilbert says in the film.

The film then focuses on the successful battle to remove the Chapman Amendment from the ADA before its passage. The Chapman Amendment would have allowed restaurant owners and other employers to move employees with communicable diseases such as AIDS to non-food processing positions, despite the lack of evidence that AIDS can be transmitted through food processing.

Across the country, students participating in National History Day have the opportunity to work on projects like this. Students can enter projects within five creative categories across two divisions (one for grades 6-8 and the other for grades 9-12). A student can create a documentary, exhibition, performance, website or write a paper in which he examines a specific theme from history. Students can participate in the competitions as a group or individually.

Gilbert participates in a National History Day club at his school, led by teacher Katie Cassesse, where he was able to receive feedback and support for his project.

This wasn’t his first year making a film for NHD – last year he made one about polar explorer Matthew Henson – and that’s how he honed his video editing skills.

Although learning video editing programs is a challenge, he said the actual history research comes naturally to him.

“I’ve always loved history… so I really enjoyed it. You know, just reading books, finding resources online. One thing NHD taught me is that you always want to go to the primary source because I could put secondary and primary sources side by side and see the difference and inaccuracies in the secondary source,” he said. Conducting interviews — such as with a famous disability activist — was nerve-wracking but ultimately rewarding, he said.

So the million dollar question: Does Gilbert ever want to be the next Ken Burns?

“I have my sights set more on the medical sector, but it’s a little too early to say,” he said. “I have time.”

Copy the story link