Kevin Willmott

After receiving his Master’s degree in screenwriting at New York University, Kevin returned to his native Kansas in 1992.  It was unlikely base for a career that would include directing two Sundance Film Festival features, writing Hollywood scripts for Oliver Stone and Chris Columbus, and collaborating and working with talents as diverse as Spike Lee, Bill Kurtis, Stan Herd, Martin Sheen, Father Daniel Berrigan, Wes Studi, Dick Gregory, Kathleen Sebelius and Isaac Hayes.

But doing things the conventional way has never been Kevin’s strong suit.

In between college and grad school, Willmott lived in his hometown of Junction City, where he taught, produced his own plays and organized political protests, ultimately leading the fight to desegregate the local fire department.  Eventually, Willmott signed on with The University of Kansas, where he now teaches in the Film department.

After a decade of writing scripts for Hollywood as a gun-for-hire, Willmott plowed his own money and a few thousand from grants and investors into his own feature film -- CSA: Confederate States of America, a mock-doc about American history since the Civil War (same as now, except the South won the Civil War).  Somehow he got it made, and somehow, Sundance recognized its brilliant, and outrageous, potential.  Critics called it “genius,” “alarming,” “provocative,” and better and worse – and no one who has seen it will ever forget it.

Willmott returned to Sundance a few years later with The Only Good Indian, a feature starring Wes Studi ( Avatar, Last of the Mohicans), uncovering the hidden history of Native American boarding schools.  Another film, The Battle for Bunker Hill, starring James McDaniel ( NYPD Blue) and Saeed Jaffrey ( Gandhi) comments humorously and furiously about modern Islamaphobia and other forms of fear-mongering.  

The best part?  Kevin still has much to say.  He’s witty, eloquent, surprising and highly engaging.  Unlike some equally opinionated speakers, Kevin Willmott genuinely enjoys hearing opposing views, and usually respects the person voicing them, too.