Kevin Willmott has been breathing rarefied air in the world of film and television since winning an Oscar for best adapted screenplay in 2019 for “BlacKkKlansman.”

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“That opened the floodgates, really,” the Junction City, Kansas, native and University of Kansas professor said. “I never worked so hard in my life.”

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Willmott said he is “juggling five or six projects right now,” including one with famed director Spike Lee, his partner on “BlacKkKlansman.” Also in the works (with “Bridgerton” star Regé-Jean Page and Morgan Freeman) is an eight-part series for Peacock about Muhammad Ali and a project for Netflix about Ebony magazine.

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But Willmott has kept his roots firmly planted in Lawrence and the Kansas City area, carving out time in his schedule to make small-budget films of local interest. His nonprofit Do Good Productions has produced “Gordon Parks Elementary” (2016) and “No Place Like Home: The Struggle Against Hate in Kansas” (2022).

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His most recent effort is “The Heroic True-Life Adventures of Alvin Brooks,” about the Kansas City political and civil rights icon. Its world premiere will be June 19 — Juneteenth — at the Screenland Armour as part of the Juneteenth Film Festival.

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The 90-minute documentary is a follow-up to Brooks’ 2021 book “Binding Us Together: A Civil Rights Activist Reflects on a Lifetime of Community and Public Service.”

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“In many ways, it’s an adaptation of the book,” Willmott said. “But really, more than anything, it’s Mr. Brooks telling his life story.”

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Yes, the 64-year-old writer-director always refers to the 92-year-old local legend as “Mr.”

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“That’s Kevin,” Brooks said. “I call him either Maestro or I call him Sir … Sir Willmott.”

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Willmott opted not to keep Brooks’ title “Binding Us Together” for the documentary, however.

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“It’s a great book title, but movies have to be a little more provocative,” he said.

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Brooks loves the name — “It blew me out of the water,” he said — and it’s appropriate because “The Heroic True-Life Adventures of Alvin Brooks” has the flavor of a superhero comic book. Willmott describes Brooks’ life as a “blues kind of almost folktale reality,” and the documentary uses animation when illustrating some of Brooks’ colorful stories.

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“He made it incredibly easy because he has such a rich memory, and such a detailed memory,” Willmott said. “He’s 92, and it’s just amazing the details that he knows about addresses from 1935 and what somebody was wearing in the 1950s.”

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Born in North Little Rock, Arkansas, Brooks was raised by a moonshiner who moved with his wife and young Alvin to Kansas City after killing a white man in a bootlegging dispute. Alvin married as a senior in high school, worked as a janitor and became one of the few Black officers on the Kansas City police force before serving as human relations director, assistant city manager and mayor pro tem for Kansas City. Brooks launched the city’s Ad Hoc Group Against Crime in 1977.

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“It’s a story that can never be told fully, except by those who lived it,” he said.

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“It’s many different lives, and in that sense it makes you almost believe it’s not true,” Willmott said. “It’s clearly all true.”

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Willmott said Brooks’ origin story might surprise viewers. In the documentary, he returns to scenes from his past.

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“A policeman put a gun to his head as a kid and told him to run up the hill or he was going to kill his ‘n***** ass,’” Willmott said. “And he ran up the hill.

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“He was with some white buddies, and they laughed about it then. But afterwards he realized that was the moment he understood segregation and hate. And we go to that same spot 82 years later, and he tells that story.”

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Willmott, whose credits also include “Da 5 Bloods” (with Spike Lee), “Chi-Raq,” “The Only Good Indian” and “C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America,” met Brooks and heard many of his stories about 20 years ago while he was making the film “From Separate to Equal, the Creation of Truman Medical Center.”

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They reconnected when the filmmaker wrote a blurb for Brooks’ 2021 book.

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“It reminded me of how 20 years ago I said his stories would make a great film,” Wilmott said. “And we finally got it together.

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“I would consider him a historical figure. With people who have a real place in history, you don’t often get a chance for them to tell their story first person. That was the other thing that really made me want to do it right now.”

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Brooks said he is in the process of setting up the Binding Us Together Foundation to use the film’s proceeds to assist first-generation college students interested in writing and producing. He also is working on a children’s book based on his life.

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Meanwhile, he’s looking forward to seeing “The Heroic True-Life Adventures of Alvin Brooks” for the first time.

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“I don’t want a preview of it,” Brooks said. “I just want to sit there with the rest of the audience and watch it and laugh.

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“I know it’s going to be good, it’s going to be fun. There’s probably going to be some sad moments. And the animation is going to be outstanding.

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“I’m just thrilled and excited and thank God I’ve been able to stick around here long enough to do this.”

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‘The Heroic True-Life Adventures of Alvin Brooks’

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▪ World premiere at Screenland Armour, 6 p.m. (sold out) and 8:30 p.m. June 19; showings followed by Q&A. screenland.com.

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▪ Also, 6 p.m. June 30 at Lawrence Arts Center as part of Free State Festival. freestatefestival.org.

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▪ A 46-minute version will be shown on Kansas City PBS, Channel 19.1, at 7 p.m. July 11 (followed by “Art House Live!” featuring Kevin Willmott at 8 p.m.) and 6 p.m. July 14. kansascitypbs.org.

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A few true-life honors

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▪ President George H.W. Bush named Alvin Brooks one of America’s 1,000 Points of Light in 1989 and appointed him to the President’s National Drug Advisory Council.

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▪ Brooks received the Harry S. Truman Public Service Award in 2016.

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▪ The Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce named him Kansas Citian of the Year in 2019.