Check Out Our July 16 Show With Filmmaker Don Maxwell

It’s that time again! CinemaKC will be on this Saturday night at 9:30pm on KSMO-TV 62 and the show will features Kansas City filmmaker Don Maxwell.

Maxwell’s “Command and Control” and trailer from “Civil War Stories” will be featured on the July 16th show. Maxwell got started in professional filmmaking in the late 70’s at Kansas City based Calvin Communications. The skills gained there enabled him to make independently produced short films. One of these, “Prairie Storm,” (1996) the dramatic representation of a Flint Hills’ thunderstorm, has won domestic and international awards and is currently in the traveling national exhibit “America Now and Here.”

Maxwell has directed one feature film, “Ambrose Bierce: Civil War Stories,” starring Campbell Scott, released in 2006, and available on Netflix. The film takes place in the early 1890’s in a hotel outside of San Francisco. In the film, Bierce has been cornered by his conniving employer, William Randolph Hearst, and an up and coming woman author, Gertrude Atherton. In an attempt to give them the slip Bierce reads from his just published collection of short stories.

“Civil War Stories” was mostly produced in the Kansas City area and features the work of many of the areas best artists and craftsmen. One of the stories, “One Kind of Officer,” was filmed on a set created inside an airplane hanger at the former Richards Gabauer airbase. The trailer for this film is part of the July 16th program.

The film “Command and Control” is a remade version of “One Kind of Officer” and was completed this year. A side by side comparison of the two films offers a look at the endless approaches possible in the treatment any film subject.

CinemaKC is the first TV show in Kansas City to spotlight local filmmakers, producers, directors and actors. A team of volunteers produced the show. For more information about CinemaKC, visit our Facebook page.