Kevin Willmott, Profesor of Film and Media Studies at Kansas University visited with and motivated Fine Arts and Human Services students at Junction City High School this afternoon.

“Junction City has a unique energy that you don’t have in every place and I saw that [energy] today with these kids,” said Willmott.

The honorary graduate of Junction City High School class of 1976 and graduate of St. Xavier High School spoke to students about his experience in the film industry and spoke to them about going to school “with an agenda”.

The Junction City native’s first film was based on his hometown.

“As a kid I would hear my parents telling stories about Ninth Street [in Junction City] and I thought ‘I’m going to write about Ninth Street.'”

In the 1970s, Ninth Street in Junction City was a an area predominantly inhabited by minorities. Infamously, this was also an area known as the “Red Light District”.

The film helped Willmott earn his way in to film School at New York University.

Willmott’s dreams began long before he attended NYU, but as a child listening to his parents and elders tell stories about the local Junction City community. While attending Marymount College in Salina, Willmott took part in the play “Lysistrata”, a Greek comedy by Aristophanes, which served as the inspiration for the 2015 film “Chiraq”.

“Chiraq” is a satire about the large number of gun violence deaths in Chicago, Illinois.

Willmott stressed to the students that things don’t always happen quickly , as the film Chiraq waited 15 years before its 2015 debut, but it was always important to “find a way” to tell his stories.

“All the movies that I make are based on things [that] I care about,” said Willmott.

Willmott spent the afternoon speaking to students interested in film and media before leaving them with these words, “By being who you are and doing what you are good at, you can figure out who you are.”