Kevin Willmott

Kevin Willmott won an Academy Award and the BAFTA the British Academy award for co-writing with Spike Lee the feature film Blackkklansman. The film also won the Grand Prix at the Cannes film Festival. He also co-wrote and is the executive producer of the critically acclaimed film, Chi-Raq, also directed by Spike Lee. The film is on numerous best of 2015 lists including best film and best screenplay by The New Yorker Magazine.

Among the award-winning films Wilmott has written and/or directed are Ninth Street, CSA -Confederate States of America, The Battle for Bunker Hill, The Only Good Indian, Jayhawkers and Destination Planet Negro. Among the documentaries he directed are: 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.

He co-wrote with Spike Lee the feature film, Da Five Bloods for Netflix, which The National Board of Review named the Best Film of 2020. Willmott co-wrote with Trai Byers and directed the critically acclaimed feature film The 24th about the Houston Riot of 1917. The film was nominated for an NAACP Image Award in 2020.

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 works full-time as a screenwriter and director and is a Professor Emertitus of The University of Kansas.