When a former slave, turned Union soldier, goes missing at the end of the Civil War, three mercenaries are hired by the Union Army to find him by any means necessary.
Director’s Statement
The inspiration behind Ashburn came as I was reading a biography on President Grant (Author: Ron Chernow). Most notably, I was taken with the idea that as Grant rose to prominence, so many men rightfully fell from grace in his wake—namely, the leaders of the Confederate Army in the American Civil War. Those men who were once renowned heroes: Lee, Stonewall Jackson etc., were quickly reduced to almost cliff notes and their image tarnished for, quite literally, the rest of time. Moreover, many of these men lived to see their legacy fall and understood the significance, I wondered what that experience must have been like – how these men continued in life after they had seen themselves become solidified as enemies; deservedly so. In this, I saw a lot of parallels with the Cosby’s, and Weinstein’s of the world today. Men (and women) who represent an evil (whether knowingly or unknowingly)—using it to gain prominence and, ultimately, living to watch their “empire” collapse underneath them. “Ashburn” is a study on this idea…the mentality of losing the legacy that you’ve spent a lifetime building and the questioning of one’s own importance and place in the world once it has been taken.