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***NOTE TO EDITORS***

 PLEASE DISREGARD THE PREVIOUS RELEASE ABOUT THE REPRISE OF BAD BLOOD WHICHSTATED THAT IT WOULD BE REBROADCAST ON Saturday March 10th. THE DOCUMENTARY WILL ACTUALLY BE SHOWN THIS Friday MARCH 9, FROM 7-9 P.M. AS THE RELEASE BELOW STATES. THANK YOU FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING AND SUPPORT FOR PUBLIC TELEVISION.

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

March 7, 2007

KCPT to Air Reprise of Bad Blood: The Border War That Triggered the Civil War

Locally Produced Documentary Opens Old Wounds Between Kansas and Missouri


(KANSAS CITY)—By popular demand, KCPT's locally-produced documentary Bad Blood:  The Border War that Triggered the Civil War will be rebroadcast Friday, March 9 from 7 to 9 p.m. on KCPT.

Bad Blood premiered March 4th. The program is a 90-minute documentary about the events leading up to the Civil War along the border of Kansas and Missouri. The program won praise from Kansas City Star television critic Aaron Barnhart, who said that he could not "recall a more thorough or compelling account of the tug of war between pro-slavery and anti-slavery forces in Kansas."

"We told the story through the eyes of both Missourians and Kansans. We took the people who lived it and interviewed them documentary style," said co-producer Angee Simmons. "We taped it as if we were interviewing them in the 1850s."

"We took a fair and balanced approach of both sides of the issue," said producer Pamela Reichart. Reichart researched and scripted the film, which explores the turbulent years 1853 through 1861.

Bad Blood's origins sprang from a successful documentary Reichart and Simmons produced in 2001, KC to Kanorado: An Uncommon View from I-70. 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 proslavery government in Kansas," Reichart said. "That piqued our interest."

"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," Simmons said.

The idea languished until 2004, when Fred and Lou Hartwig, who underwrote 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 they delved into research for the project the more 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 when we realized that this was one of the root causes of the Civil War," Reichart said. "We were cognizant that the film's title couldn't say Kansas and Missouri. 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,"

"People talked about Kansas like we do Iraq today—newspaper writers on the coast were writing about events here were that were literally shaping the politics of our country," Simmons added. "These events clearly affected the entire nation."

"It's hard to look at this Border War with 21st Century eyes," Simmons said. "We strived to make it as balanced as we could."

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 historical 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 reenactor's shirts to the way battle scenes were filmed was as accurate as possible.

Initial funding for Bad Blood came from a grant from the Fred & Lou Hartwig Foundation.  The Missouri Division of Tourism and the Kansas Department of Commerce provided additional funding. Other vital support came from the Kansas State Historical Society, Ludwig Design and Blue Wall Design. The production utilizes musical talents of Connie Dover. Danny Cox lends his voice for narration. Wetplate photographer Robert Szabo created eerily realistic photographs that have the unmistakable look and feel of photos from that era. The program will air locally on KCPT March 4 and will be distributed nationally to PBS member stations.

Shot in stunning High Definition, Bad Blood:  The Border War that Triggered the Civil War airs Friday, March 9th at 7 p.m. on KCPT. For more information, including a preview of the program, visit http://www.kcpt.org/badblood/.

--KCPT--