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KCPT Media Release
Contact: Alex Greenwood, 816-756-3580 ext.4270

February 23, 2007

KCPT's Bad Blood Opens Old Wounds Between Kansas and Missouri


(KANSAS CITY) — In the years leading up to the Civil War, a bloody conflict between Missourian slaveholders and Kansan abolitionists focused the nation's eyes on the Missouri-Kansas border, where history was unfolding on the Midwestern plains. This history will be told once and for all, through the lives of slave owners, free-staters, border ruffians, and politicians who helped to shape America's future.

Bad Blood: The Border War That Triggered the Civil War is the story of this epic time in our nation's history.

Airing on KCPT Sunday, March 4th at 7 p.m. and co-produced by KCPT and Wide Awake Films, Bad Blood is a 90-minute documentary that presents the complex morality, differing values, and life-and-death decisions that defined the people who lived during the turbulent years from 1853 through 1861.

"We told the story through the eyes of both Missourians and Kansans," said KCPT co-producer Angee Simmons. "We found the accounts of the people who lived it and had actors portray these people as if they were being interviewed in the 1850s - documentary style."

Simmons' co-producer, Pamela Reichart, researched and scripted the film. "We took a fair and balanced approach to both sides of the issue," said Reichart, though Simmons admits, "It's hard to look at this border war with 21st century eyes."

Bad Blood's origins sprang from a successful documentary Reichart and Simmons produced in 2001, KC to Kanorado: An Uncommon View from I-70, for which both producers received an Emmy Award. The film documented a journey that crossed 424 miles of the Sunflower State.

"When we were researching that show and came to Lecompton, Kansas, we learned there was once a pro-slavery government in Kansas," Reichart said. "That piqued our interest."

Simmons adds, "At that point, we put a snippet about the border war in KC to Kanorado; but we thought that if we had the chance it could merit an entire feature."

The idea languished until 2004, when Fred and Lou Hartwig, who provided underwriting for KC to Kanorado, asked what other projects might be in the hopper.

"That's when Bad Blood really started," Simmons said. "The Hartwigs have been our white knights with this project."

The more Reichart and Simmons delved into research for the project, they realized it was more than a story of old wounds between two states; it was a story that had national appeal.

"We started small, looking at why there is an underlying animosity between Missouri and Kansas," Reichart said. "We realized that this was one of the root causes of the Civil War. These events were not limited to incidents that happened here. It was a border war between two states that catapulted us into a civil war."

Simmons compares the coverage of Missouri and Kansas in the 1850s to the kind of media attention garnered by the current war in Iraq.

"Newspaper writers on the coast were writing about events here that were literally shaping the politics of our country," Simmons said. "These events clearly affected the entire nation."

About a year into the project, when it was time to include reenactment footage, Reichart and Simmons approached Wide Awake Films' owners -- Ed Leydecker, Shane Seley and Rob Hodge -- because of their expertise in directing and producing historical reenactments. Their work includes five original Civil War-era documentaries and various contributions to historical productions for the History Channel, TNT, A&E, and PBS.

"We heard they had reenactment footage and thought they might share it with us," Simmons said. "But after our first meeting it was clear that they had a whole lot more they could offer and that we were going to need new footage. Wide Awake was so excited about the project, they agreed to partner with us to help shoot and edit the documentary."

Wide Awake was particularly helpful in managing up to 75 reenactors and actors from across the area to make sure everything from the buttons on the reenactors' shirts to the staging of their battles was as accurate as possible.

"I can't say enough how much we appreciated the collaboration with Wide Awake," Simmons said. Wide Awake's expertise extended to friend and wetplate photographer Robert Szabo, who created eerily realistic photographs that have the unmistakable look and feel of the Civil War era, like the photo featured on this magazine's cover.

Shot in stunning high definition, Bad Blood: The Border War that Triggered the Civil War airs Sunday, March 4th at 7 p.m. on KCPT. For more information, including a preview of the program, visit http://www.kcpt.org/badblood/.

Funding for Bad Blood provided by the Fred and Lou Hartwig Foundation, The Missouri Division of Tourism, the Kansas Department of Commerce, the Kansas State Historical Society, Ludwig Design, and Blue Wall Design.

--KCPT--