KU filmmakers bound for Sundance

Kevin Willmott

Imagine the Confederates actually won the Civil War. A satirical film created by two KU professors based on that premise has been selected as an official entry in the 2004 Sundance Film Festival, Jan. 15 -25, in Park City, Utah.

Kevin Willmott is the writer, producer and director, and Matt Jacobson is the cinematographer for "CSA: Confederate States of America." Both are assistant professors in KU's theatre and film department. They premiered an earlier version of the film in Lawrence in February.

"CSA" uses a faux documentary style to examine what the United States would be like if the South had won the Civil War. The film was selected for the "American Spectrum" category at Sundance. The dates and times Sundance will show "CSA" will be announced later.

This is Willmott's first invitation to Sundance and Jacobson's second consecutive year in the competition, regarded as the foremost showcase for American independent films. Past festivals have included films that have literally charted the history of independent cinema such as: "Sex, Lies and Videotape," "Hoop Dreams," "The Full Monty," "Shine," "The Blair Witch Project" and "In the Bedroom."

"Sundance provides filmmakers major exposure and the opportunity to find the perfect distributor," Willmott says. "The idea is to go there and sell the film , so we can get our message out to as many people as possible. We want people all over the world to see that relevant, high-quality films can be made in the Midwest. … We hope people will see this film, and think, 'Wow, KU has really got it going on!' "

Jacobson first attended the festival this year for his work with the documentary "Bukowski: Born into This." Jacobson says, "It was one of the few documentaries to find a distributor at the 2003 festival. It's exciting to be going back for 2004. It's not often that a cinematographer from Kansas, or anywhere, for that matter, makes it into competition at a festival like this two years in a row."

Both he and Willmott are hoping "CSA" will experience similar success.

Willmott, who grew up in Junction City, describes his satire as probably the most controversial film never to have sex, nudity or violence, due to the topic —-slavery. In "CSA," slavery is alive and well in modern America.

"The South lost the war, but they sold us on their way of life —segregating the races," Willmott said. Willmott poses questions to support his premise: "How did Kansas, a free state, become segregated? Or how did Lawrence, a city founded by abolitionists, become segregated? Why is it the Topeka Board of Education case? You would think it would be the Mississippi Board of Education case."

An earlier version of the film sold out for the Feb. 21 Lawrence premiere at Liberty Hall during the Langston Hughes February Festival celebrating Kansas writers and artists. Willmott scheduled a second screening in April that played to a capacity crowd. Jacobson presented a special screening of the film at KU's John W. Campbell Science Fiction Conference in July.

In previous screenings in Salina, Kansas City, Rochester, N.Y., South Dakota and Springfield, Ill., the film was well received. Some viewers wanted copies of the film to use as a tool to teach history and race relations.

Willmott hopes festivals such as Sundance help him sell the film for distribution to theatres throughout the country.

"CSA" funding sources included a grant from the National Black Programming Consortium, a PBS affiliate and KU's New Faculty Research Grant program.

For more information on the Sundance Film Festival: http://festival.sundance.org/index3.html