VIDEO BY KAITLIN BROTHERS / MULTIMEDIA EDITOR
(WARRENSBURG, Mo. )-Kevin Willmott is a film director and writer, and an associate professor at the University of Kansas teaching film studies.
Mark von Schlemmer, a professor at the University of Central Missouri, is an editor and has helped Willmott edit many of his films over the years.
Willmott has directed and wrote films such as “Ninth Street,” “Das Bus,” “The Confederate States of America,” “Bunker Hill,” “The Only Good Indian,” “Destination: Planet Negro,” “Gordon Parks Elementary,” “Jayhawkers,” “Chi-Raq” and more.
Willmott is well known for “The Confederate States of America,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. The movie is a British documentary that shows life in America if the south had won the civil war.
Willmott and von Schlemmer met through von Schlemmer’s show, “Sihlouttes.” It was aired on a local TV station which Willmott wanted his film “Big Man” to be aired on. From there, von Schlemmer started taking classes from Willmott at Kansas University. Von Schlemmer then started helping him edit “The Confederate States of America,” so a long partnership had blossomed.
Willmott and von Schlemmer’s favorite film they have worked on together is “Destination: Planet Negro.”
“Destination: Planet Negro” is a film about African-American leaders reacting to the Jim Crow laws by colonizing on Mars. Instead of landing on Mars, they find themselves in modern-day America, showing racial issues still relevant today.
“It’s not becoming less relevant too, I mean that’s part of it, is that it’s a film that unfortunately…we’re not really living in a post-racial society,” von Shlemmer said.
Willmott said he really appreciates von Schlemmer’s hard work on his films, and how he tries anything he might throw at him, no matter how crazy.
He said they try the edit, see if it works and if it doesn’t, they learn from their mistakes and move on.
“I really love Mark’s willingness to try things,” Willmott said. “I mean, I’ve worked with other editors and it can be frustrating when they don’t want to try it.”
Jacob Clark contributed to this video.