Academy Award-winning American film director and screenwriter Kevin Willmott will discuss his career on Tuesday, Nov. 11, as part of the University of the Ozarks’ 2025-26 Walton Arts & Ideas Series.
The event will begin at 7 p.m., in the Rogers Conference Center. The public is invited to attend and there is no cost for admission.
In 2019, Willmott won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay and the British Academy award (BAFTA) for co-writing with Spike Lee the feature film Blackkklansman. The film also won the Grand Prix at the Cannes Film Festival.
He co-wrote with Spike Lee the feature film, Da Five Bloods for Netflix which won the best film by the National Board of Review. He also co-wrote and is the executive producer of the critically acclaimed film, Chi-Raq, also directed by Spike Lee.
Award-winning films written and directed by Willmott include Ninth Street, CSA -Confederate States of America, the Battle for Bunker Hill, Jayhawkers and Destination Planet Negro.
Documentaries directed by Willmott include: From Separate to Equal: The Creation of Truman Medical Center, Gordon Parks Elementary, Fast Break: The Legendary Coach John Mclendon, and William Allen White: What’s the Matter with Kansas, No Place Like Home: The Struggle Against Hate in Kansas and The Heroic True-Life Adventures of Alvin Brooks.
Willmott co-wrote with Trai Byers and directed the critically acclaimed feature film The 24th about the Houston Riot of 1917 which was nominated for an NAACP image award.
He just completed principal photography on the feature film, The Bard starring David Gyasi of The Diplomat and Julia Schlaepfer of 1923. The film tells the story of enslaved poet, George Moses Horton.
Willmott grew up in Junction City, Kansas, and attended Marymount College, receiving his BA in drama. After graduation, he returned home, working as a peace and civil rights activist, fighting for the rights of the poor, creating two Catholic Worker shelters for the homeless and forcing the integration of several long-standing segregated institutions.
He attended graduate studies at New York University, Tisch School of the Arts, receiving several writing awards and his M.F.A. in dramatic writing.
Willmott is a professor in the Media and Film Studies Department of Kansas University.
Topics: WAIS