Kevin Willmott Film Festival
February 18 - 21, 2025
Join us for a four-day festival to celebrate Professor Kevin Willmott's career in filmmaking! We will screen one of his films each night at Liberty Hall. See below for the schedule. Guest speakers will discuss the films afterwards. Ticket prices will be released closer to the festival.
Destination Planet Negro
Tuesday, February 18, 2025 at 7:00 PM at Liberty Hall with post-screening discussion.Destination Planet Negro Trailer
In 1939, African American leaders respond to Jim Crow segregation by building a rocket to colonize Mars. The three person crew blasts off, but time travel instead, arriving in present-day America revealing much about race today.
The Only Good Indian
Wednesday, February 19, 2025 at 7:00 PM at Liberty Hall with post-screening discussion.The Only Good Indian Trailer
In the early 1900's a Native American boy escapes from a training camp and a Cherokee bounty hunter (Wes Studi), who has adopted the white man's way of life, is sent to find him. A tragic incident spurs the bounty hunter's nemesis, a famous Indian fighter, to search for him and the boy.
Jayhawkers
Thursday, February 20, 2025 at 1:00 PM at Liberty Hall with post-screening discussion.Jayhawkers Trailer
A group of unlikely allies modernised college sports and changed a small Midwestern town, serving as a parallel to the Civil Rights movement that would transform the entire American society.
C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America
Friday, February 21, 2025 at 6:30 PM at Liberty Hall with post-screening discussion.CSA Trailer
Through the eyes of a British "documentary", this film takes a satirically humorous, and sometimes frightening, look at the history of an America where the South won the Civil War.
Kevin Willmott holds his Oscar for BlacKkKlansman.
Kevin Willmott looks over a script with Spike Lee.
Bio
Kevin Willmott grew up in Junction City, Kansas and received his BA in Drama from Marymount College in Salina, Kansas. His work often focuses on human rights and race issues.
He wrote and directed the critically-acclaimed feature film C.S.A: Confederate States of America, about America, had the South won the Civil War. It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2004 and remains relevant today.
The Only Good Indian (2009) was his feature film about Native American children at an Indian boarding school and the forced assimilation that took place.
Destination Planet Negro (2013) is set in 1939, where African American leaders respond to Jim Crow segregation by building a rocket to colonize Mars. The crew blasts off, but time travel instead, arriving in present-day America revealing much about race today.
In Jayhawkers (2014), he followed the life of Wilt Chamberlain, Phog Allen and the 1956 Kansas Jayhawks basketball team.
In 2019, Willmott won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for the film BlacKkKlansman, which he co-wrote with Spike Lee, Charlie Wachtel, and David Rabinowitz. He worked with Spike Lee again for Da 5 Bloods (2020). In the film, four black veterans battle the forces of man and nature when they return to Vietnam seeking the remains of their fallen squad leader and the gold fortune he helped them hide.
Willmott is currently a professor emeritus of the University of Kansas Film & Media Studies program.
