Kent State shootings to be focus of movie starring Dermot Mulroney, Clancy Brown

The May 4, 1970, shootings at Kent State University will be the subject of a new movie.

Scheduled to begin filming in November, “Kent State” will tell the story of how “a family’s buried past coincides with the brutal truth of one of the most significant events in American history.”

Local history:Retired Kent State nurse recalls May 4, 1970

Georgia will double as Ohio in the historical drama about National Guardsmen opening fire on a crowd of Vietnam War protesters, killing four students and wounding nine.

Actors Dermot Mulroney and Clancy Brown have been cast in the $10 million project, which will be directed by Karen Slade based on a screenplay that she wrote. Briarcliff Entertainment has acquired the distribution rights in North America. A 2023 release is planned.

“The Kent State shooting was a dark and pivotal moment in our nation’s history,” Briarcliff founder and Chief Executive Tom Ortenberg said in a prepared statement. “This is a story that needs to be told and surprisingly never has. We are looking forward to bringing it to the big screen to educate and inspire both the young and old alike.”

The film will be told through protagonist Will McCormack’s perspective “in two time periods in his life,” Hollywood entertainment site Deadline reported. It’s unclear whether the character will be a guardsman, protester or someone else. No one with that name is known to have played a significant role in the events of 1970. Deadline said the movie will ask “the question of not just what happened then, but why these kinds of events continue to happen.”

The cast includes Christopher Backus, Aksel Hennie, Jacqueline Emerson, Christopher Ammanuel and Andrew Ortenberg.

Director Karen Slade has advertising background

Slade, the director, could not be reached for comment. She is not the same Karen Slade who graduated from Kent State in 1977 with a degree in telecommunications and is now a radio executive in Los Angeles.

The director has a master’s degree from Harvard in cultural anthropology. Before focusing on motion pictures, she worked in advertising.

According to her biography on karenslade.com: “Karen has created and positioned brands, communication strategies and strategic creative solutions across all media for over 15 years in New York and London. She has worked with global brands, designer brands as well as startups, across industries from finance to designers.”

Her clients have included Citi, Gap, Nautica, IBM, Honeywell, Elle, Gillette, Time, Diet Rite, Loro Piana, Ciroc Vodka and Moët & Chandon.

Slade has written and directed three short films: “D.U.M.B.O.,” a thriller about a Manhattan abduction, “The Failure,” a futuristic thriller about crop failure, and “Double,” a comedy about a hotel guest’s quest to be taken seriously. She also has announced the feature-length film “Outboard,” which she plans to direct based on her own script. In the tradition of “Deliverance,” it’s a “female-led political action thriller” set in the Louisiana bayou.

Columbus State University in Georgia will substitute for Kent State when filming begins next month. The movie is expected to take 25 days to wrap.

Producers wanted to film at Kent State

Kent State spokesman Eric Mansfield, executive director of university media relations, said the producers approached the administration in 2019 about filming on campus and sent a proposal, but there was never a formal contract in play.

“There were phone calls and emails, but I think the biggest sticking point was they wanted to be able to film during the school year,” Mansfield said. “Something of this magnitude, regardless of the historical significance of the property, would have been tough to do and not disrupt the education process.”

The studio hoped to get started in the spring, but KSU administrators preferred summer when fewer people are on campus, Mansfield said. Otherwise, movie crews could block students from getting to class, restrict public access to buildings and take up limited parking spaces.

The university has a filming policy that lays out the conditions for making commercial movies on campus. There are exceptions for news media and student media, including those who wish to film documentaries about the events of 1970, but Hollywood crews must get permission.

“You’ll see in the policy that the commercial shoots do have to submit some kind of a proposal so we know how it will be used,” Mansfield said. “And then we would have the ability to review that to see whether we can approve it and support it — or not.”

Kent State administrators would have been averse to filming a Hollywood re-creation with hundreds of extras on the site where the shootings occurred, he said.

“To do so on the hallowed grounds, I believe, would likely be a nonstarter for us out of respect for the families, the students and all the survivors of May 4, 1970,” Mansfield said.

The producers ultimately went with Georgia instead of Ohio. Similarly, the 1981 made-for-TV movie “Kent State,” which featured Talia Balsam, Keith Gordon and John Getz, was filmed at Gadsden State Junior College in Alabama.

Hollywood routinely visits campus

The public might be surprised to know how many productions are filmed at Kent State.

The Liam Neeson action movie “The Marksman,” released in 2021, rented space at the university and filmed scenes there, even though the bulk of the movie is set along the Arizona-Mexico border.

Recently, Netflix wrapped up the apocalyptic comedy “White Noise,” starring Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig and Don Cheadle, which was filmed at several sites in Northeast Ohio, including Kent State. It’s due to be released in November.

“They rented part of the student center, the upstairs there, and had a hundred extras and brought in the big-time actors,” Mansfield said. “They were here for about a week.”

Kent State was scouted last spring as a possible location for “Shooting Stars,” an upcoming movie about the high school years of NBA star LeBron James in Akron. The producers considered filming basketball scenes in the M.A.C. Center but opted to go elsewhere.

“We deal with Hollywood more often than people realize,” Mansfield said.

Movie surprises 1970 witness

Roseann “Chic” Canfora, a professional in residence and assistant professor of media and journalism at Kent State, was surprised to learn that her alma mater will be the subject of a new motion picture. She was an eyewitness to the 1970 shootings.

“I haven’t talked to anybody associated with May 4 that knows anything about this,” she said.

Her brother Alan Canfora was wounded when a guardsman fired an M1 rifle from 176 feet away, striking him in the right wrist as he dived behind a tree. An outspoken activist for the next 50 years, Alan died Dec. 20, 2020, at age 71 after a brief illness.

More:Activist Alan Canfora, wounded in May 4, 1970, Kent State shootings, dies at 71

Canfora said she is curious to know the source material for the new film. Did it come from books? Were any experts consulted? The moviemaking process for historical dramas usually involves a great deal of research before a production can get to the point of announcing directors, actors, studios and locations, she said.

“While I do agree with these filmmakers that we are long overdue in bringing the story of the Kent State shootings to the big screen, they should know that great scripts that have been well-researched, masterfully written, well-funded, optioned and attached to some of the biggest names in Hollywood remain on the shelves at Universal Studios and HBO,” Canfora noted. “And those widely known efforts have been ongoing since 1995.”

Even though 52 years have passed, Canfora is not convinced that America is ready “to hear or to reckon with the truth about one of the darkest chapters in its history.”

She isn’t opposed to the idea of a movie about Kent State. Novels and movies set in historical times can help personalize history, she said, citing “All Quiet on the Western Front,” which encapsulates for every soldier on both sides what it’s like to confront the enemy and see him as human.

“So I do see value in that kind of storytelling, but I would be remiss if I didn’t say that I worry every time I see a hastily made film project associated with the Kent State shootings,” Canfora said. “Over the years, we’ve seen our share of the bad ones.”

Canfora still hasn’t viewed the 1981 made-for-TV movie. A KSU colleague recently asked her about the movie and wants to watch it with her to gauge her reaction.

“It’s on my list,” she said.

‘Telling our story’

She is interested in seeing the new movie when it is released and hopes it’s a good film if not a great one. With the right treatment, it could be an extremely powerful movie, she said.

“I do want to know how other storytellers are telling our story,” Canfora said.

She is concerned, though, that it will be a fictionalized account of a 1970 guardsman’s story. She would rather hear real voices telling the truth of what happened May 4 instead of fictional ones.

“If we can unite around one thing, students and guardsmen who squared off that day, it is: Let’s just tell people what we did, why we did it, so we can understand what happened and learn the right lessons from it,” Canfora said.

When she watches the new film, she might even take notes.

“We may have to set the record straight if they are perpetrating myths that we dispelled long ago or advancing new myths associated with it,” she said. “We care about our history or we wouldn’t have worked so hard the last 52 years to get it right.”

Mark J. Price can be reached at mprice@thebeaconjournal.com.

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This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Kent State movie to tell story of National Guard shootings in 1970