News
Kevin Willmott's new film shines light on KC civil rights figure
How an FMS director and an FMS actress explore the horror genre with short films
imagination and a desire to create, a supportive group of fellow film students alongside director Olivia Herman and actor Maya Perez have worked together to produce various films during their time as University of Kansas students. ...
How an FMS director and an FMS actress explore the horror genre with short films
imagination and a desire to create, a supportive group of fellow film students alongside director Olivia Herman and actor Maya Perez have worked together to produce various films during their time as University of Kansas students. ...
Jordan Nevels, FMS Minor, Looks Toward a Future on the Big Screen
has been a Jayhawk for life, growing up in Overland Park, KS, less than an hour from campus. Choosing Theatre Performance and Film/Media studies at KU, she has been exposed to a vast array of experiences that have opened her eyes to what could be to come in a future...
Oldfather Production Club: A creative and educational space for filmmakers
film and business majors Jillian Markway and Allison Ruschill first became film students, they found it challenging to meet like-minded peers in the film school. The two decided to take matters into their own hands. ...
FMS Prof. Willmott salutes Army’s reckoning of injustice faced by WWI-era Black soldiers
Academy Award-winning screenwriter and filmmaker Kevin Willmott welcomed the U.S. Army’s decision to set aside courts-martial convictions of 110 Black soldiers, including 19 executed for involvement in World War I-era race rioting in Houston. ...
Army's reversal of rioters’ convictions supports premise of Kevin Willmott film 'The 24th'
Kevin Willmott is unsure whether his 2020 film, “The 24th,” helped lead to this week’s decision by the U.S. Army to overturn the convictions of 110 Black soldiers who participated in the Houston race riot of 1917, 19 of whom were executed for their violent actions. ...
KU Celebrates Prof. Miner and Others at the University Teaching Awards
of Kansas hosted the inaugural University Teaching Awards on Nov. 7, 2023, to celebrate KU's most outstanding educators. ...
Jon Niccum talks new collaborative book about superheroes and the multiverse
grow more prevalent in our society day by day, it can be easy to forget their motivations and ideologies. While action figures, movies, video games, and children’s backpacks help the already booming industry, the superheroes that adorn them have stayed mostly the same. ...
Prof. Niccum's book asks "Should Superheroes be Role Models?", raises doubts
to be able to simply say "comic books" to imply the topic was about superheroes. But the reality is that these iconic characters have leapt so far beyond the pages of publishers such as Marvel and DC that more people now know Wonder Woman or Nick Fury through films, television...
Prof. Kirk hopeful after tentative writers agreement announced
than 140 days, the Writers Guild of America reached a tentative agreement with media companies. ...
Film and Media Studies Department hosts its annual film rally
and media studies department kicked off the start of the year with its annual FMS Film Rally on Thursday evening. The event offered new and returning students an opportunity to meet faculty and staff, learn about upcoming department opportunities and hear from guest speaker Deidre Backs. ...
FMS Minor, Emily Baldwin, Interns as Audio Visual Intern with Southwest Airlines
I had the privilege of interning with Southwest Airlines as an audio and visual intern. I worked at Southwest’s headquarters in Dallas, Texas, and was part of the A/V Team at Southwest Airlines University. ...
Missouri Stories Spotlight with Prof. Laura Kirk
is an associate teaching professor at the University of Kansas and is an award-winning filmmaker with credits as a producer and actor in many films including Andrea Arnold’s Cannes film American Honey (2017), and Slamdance film The Sublime and Beautiful : (2014). She was selected as a Missouri Stories Fellow...
KU theatre and film graduate earns award from department, plans to continue career in Chicago
thinks back to 2019 when he began his journey at the University of Kansas and for the first time witnessed the theatre and dance department’s iconic season opener tradition. ...
Oscar-winning KU professor to host filmmaking master class
This July, aspiring filmmakers can learn firsthand the methods and tools used by a successful writer-director to craft award-winning films. Taught by Kevin Willmott — a KU professor of film & media studies who won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for 2019’s “BlacKkKansman” — these master class sessions...
How FMS alum and trans filmmaker was forever changed by Kevin Smith's film 'Chasing Amy'
Rodgers grew up in Johnson County, Kansas, a more conservative area that's not known to be very open to LGBTQ individuals. ...
Oscar-winning FMS Prof. Willmott offers insight on writers' strike
pits guild members against The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, with compensation for writers as the sticking point. ...
First-Year Seminar “Ukraine Through the Lens of Film” students at KU Undergraduate Research Symposium
'Garden City' film shows what makes pluralism work, what threatens it
Garden City is something of a misnomer, sitting as it does on the parched high plains of southwest Kansas. But as the title of the new documentary by Robert Hurst, “Garden City, Kansas” serves as a metaphor. ...
FMS Professor at Ohio State University for CSEEES Conference
Kyrylova, the Visiting Assistant Professor at the Film and Media Studies, took part in the Annual Midwest Slavic Conference held at the Ohio State University, Columbus, March 24-26 2023. She had delivered a talk “Political and Cinematic Narratives of Volodymyr Vynnychenko in Terms of Displacement” at the Conference panel “Art...
Filmmaker draws lessons from African American history
With the 2019 Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for his work on “BlacKkKlansman” on his mantel, Kevin Willmott can focus on the screenwriting projects he likes. And while the University of Kansas professor of film & media studies has carved out a niche telling little-known stories of African American history...
FMS Alum uses his Hollywood ties to create videos that resonate while building up his community
be said that despite challenges, our choice to focus on the positive, to believe the glass is half full, to take the sunny-side up view—whatever the colloquialism, saying, good juju, prayers or the like—our focus does make a difference. ...
Prof. Willmott talks about the Power of Film
miles southwest of Manhattan, Junction City was a great town to be introduced to films, as it had three movie theaters and a drive-in. Kids could exchange eight Coke bottle tops for entrance to Summer “Coke Top” movies, perhaps because the town was the first city west of the Mississippi...
DJNOTADJ’s Deep Roots reissues groundbreaking LP using FMS Recording Studio
ago, Lawrence’s jam-tronic band DJNOTADJ released their heretofore only album, Deep Roots in Shallow Ground. Crafted with delayed guitars, rhodes, flutes, synths, pads, drum n’ bass, house, and trip-hop beats, the 12 mostly instrumental tracks flow into one another as a nearly-seamless mix of grooves interspersed with brilliant guest features...
Muhammad Ali Event Series From FMS Prof. Kevin Willmott, Regé-Jean Page & Morgan Freeman In Works At Peacock
hails from Oscar-winning BlackKklansman co-writer Kevin Willmott, Morgan Freeman and Lori McCreary’s Revelations Entertainment, Bridgerton alum Regé-Jean Page and Emily Brown. Page is executive producing, but there currently is no deal in place for him to star as Ali. CBS Studios and UCP, a division of Universal Studio Group, serve...
FMS 177 Seminar Ukraine Through the Lens of Film - Online Guests
Hawks to Watch: Chloe Burns, filmmaker, 2018 FMS Alum
with a Film & Media Studies degree in 2018, Chloe lived the film student dream of moving to Los Angeles and working in the industry. That is, until the pandemic brought the world to a halt. No industry was hit harder than film, leaving less-established workers in the dust. ...
SNL’s Heidi Gardner speaks to FMS students
event was open to all film and media studies students, not just Niccum's class. ...
Prof. Willmott and Hallmark Channel encourage Kansas film tax credit
Kevin Willmott and Hallmark movies are about as different as can be. ...