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Kevin Willmott

Kevin Willmott

Writing

Biography

Kevin Willmott (born August 31, 1959) is an Academy Award-winning American film director and screenwriter. He is known for work focusing on black issues, including writing and directing Ninth Street, C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America, and Bunker Hill. His The Only Good Indian (2009) was a feature film about Native American children at an Indian boarding school and the forced assimilation that took place. In Jayhawkers (2014), he followed the life of Wilt Chamberlain, Phog Allen and the 1956 Kansas Jayhawks basketball team. Willmott has collaborated with Spike Lee, with whom he shared an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for BlacKkKlansman. The two again collaborated in writing Da 5 Bloods, released worldwide digitally on June 12, 2020. Wilmott is a professor of film at the University of Kansas. Description above from the Wikipedia article Kevin Willmott, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Known For

BlacKkKlansman
7.5

Colorado Springs, late 1970s. Ron Stallworth, an African American police officer, and Flip Zimmerman, his Jewish colleague, run an undercover operation to infiltrate the Ku Klux Klan.

BlacKkKlansman

2018
Hollywood Black
9.0

The epic story of the actors, writers, directors, and producers who fought for their place on the page, behind the camera and on the screen. From blackface to Black Panther, this series is a definitive chronicle of more than a century of the black experience in Hollywood and a powerful reexamination of a quintessentially American story – in brilliant color.

Hollywood Black

2024
Chi-Raq
5.7

A modern day adaptation of the ancient Greek play Lysistrata by Aristophanes, set against the backdrop of gang violence in Chicago.

Chi-Raq

2015
Da 5 Bloods
6.4

Four African-American Vietnam veterans return to Vietnam. They are in search of the remains of their fallen squad leader and the promise of buried treasure. These heroes battle forces of humanity and nature while confronted by the lasting ravages of the immorality of the Vietnam War.

Da 5 Bloods

2020
The 24th
5.7

The incredibly powerful and timely true story of the all-black Twenty-Fourth United States Infantry Regiment, and the Houston Riot of 1917. The Houston Riot was a mutiny by 156 African American soldiers in response to the brutal violence and abuse at the hands of Houston police officers.

The 24th

2020
C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America
5.8

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.

C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America

2005
Oscar Micheaux: The Superhero of Black Filmmaking
6.2

A look at the extraordinary achievements and contemporary legacy of Oscar Micheaux, a pioneer of the African-American film industry.

Oscar Micheaux: The Superhero of Black Filmmaking

2021
Chasing Chasing Amy
7.7

CHASING CHASING AMY explores the transformational impact of a ‘90s rom-com on a 12 year old kid from Kansas, coming of age and contending with queer identity. For young Sav Rodgers, the Kevin Smith cult classic, CHASING AMY, became a life raft. As Rodgers examines the film and its making as a cornerstone of LGBTQ+ cinema, he finds himself at a complicated crossroads.

Chasing Chasing Amy

2023
The Only Good Indian
3.5

Set in Kansas during the early 1900s, a teen-aged Native American boy is taken from his family and forced to attend a distant Indian "training" school to assimilate into White society. When he escapes to return to his family, Sam Franklin, a bounty hunter of Cherokee descent, is hired to find and return him to the institution. Franklin, a former Indian scout for the U.S. Army, has renounced his Native heritage and has adopted the White Man's way of life, believing it's the only way for Indians to survive. Along the way, a tragic incident spurs Franklin's longtime nemesis, the famous "Indian Fighter" Sheriff Henry McCoy, to pursue both Franklin and the boy.

The Only Good Indian

2009
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7.5

The inhabitants of a deteriorating section of 1968 Junction City, Kansas known as "Junk City" bemoan their existence and revel at the history of their neighborhood during its 1940's heydays when legendary jazz musicians regularly played its clubs. In 1968, the area has diminished to strip clubs and juke joints inhabited by Vietnam War draftees that pass through from nearby Fort Riley. Heads of the group include a wino who lost a leg in WWII, a taxi dispatcher, a saloon owner, and a crazed bag lady. The younger generation is represented by a young prostitute who is trying to get off the streets, but is forced to continue to work by a no-good boy friend and the need to feed her baby. Martin Sheen also appears as a white minister who prefers the people in the area over his own congregation.

Ninth Street

1999
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N/A

The story of George Moses Horton, an enslaved poet in 19th-century North Carolina who used his writing to resist bondage and seek freedom.

The Bard

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N/A

Peter Salem, a former Wall Street executive recently released from prison, returns to his ex-wife and children in the small town of Bunker Hill, Kansas. Soon after he arrives, the town's electricity and power are shut off, and there is no way to communicate with authorities outside of town. The town's militant past is reawakened and forces coalesce to protect citizens from an unseen enemy. The town's fear leads to the creation of a posse of gunmen, resulting in torture, illegal searches and eventually, murder, against which Salem must stand.

Bunker Hill

2008
Destination: Planet Negro!
6.5

In 1939, a group of African American intellectuals come up with an ingenious and unlikely response to Jim Crow America -- leave the planet and populate Mars. Using technology created by George Washington Carver, a three-person crew (plus one rambunctious robot) lift-off in Earth's first working spaceship on a mission that will take them to a world not unlike present-day America. Their spacey adventure illuminates some hard truths about American culture, and threatens to undermine the time-line of history along the way.

Destination: Planet Negro!

2013
Jayhawkers
N/A

A group of unlikely allies modernized college sports and changed a small Midwestern town, serving as a parallel to the Civil Rights movement that would transform the entire American society.

Jayhawkers

2014
No Place Like Home
1.0

Directed by Oscar winner Kevin Willmott, No Place Like Home takes you on a tour of a deep red state, to meet people who have found themselves in a battle for LGBTQ rights in the most unlikely places. In places like rural Trego County, Salina and Topeka, you'll meet some of the people C.J. Janovy profiles in her book No Place Like Home: Lessons in Activism in LGBT Kansas (University Press of Kansas, January 2018). You'll also meet emerging activists - ordinary people doing extraordinary things, all because they're committed to securing justice for everyone in their home state.

No Place Like Home

2022
William Allen White: What's the Matter with Kansas
N/A

Narrated by Bill Kurtis, this documentary that explores the life an accomplishments of William Allen White.

William Allen White: What's the Matter with Kansas

2018
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N/A

The story of Wimbledon tennis champ and civil rights activist Arthur Ashe

Arthur Ashe

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8.0

A mockumentary about the search for a mysterious creature known as Inflata-boy.

The Search for Inflata-boy

2003