Michael Cheers, the film’s director, spent the last five years working on the project. It originated as a way to honor his mentor Gordon Parks, and is inspired by Parks’ 1950 photo essay “Back to Fort Scott.”
To find people to interview, Cheers worked closely with Gordon Parks Museum Executive Director Kirk Sharp.
“I was thinking of people that would be agreeable and just available,” Sharp said. “I felt like everybody I mentioned, no matter small, large or whoever, someone has a great story to share. And I know a lot of the folks with their stories and insight, and I just wanted to help bring those to light.”
The people featured in the documentary speak about a variety of topics, from the work they do in the community to the personal hardships they’ve faced. Cheers said he was surprised by how willing everyone was to share their stories. He wanted to honor that by using as much of the footage as possible.
“A lot of these people, we went back two or three times,” he said. “I would get in the editing room and still need something, and I said, ‘Well, I'll be back in town. Can I call you? Can we come back over?’ And the people were very nice to me, and we wanted to include as much of that in the director's cut.”
While some of the documentary will be cut so it can air on public television and be entered in festivals, the longer version that was shown at the premiere will be given to the museum.
“(Sharp) can break it up and put it on DVD or whatever,” Cheers said. “They can sell it. They can do whatever they want to. It's my gift to the people of Fort Scott.”
Cheers also produced a photo essay that was published as a two-volume book in October. The first volume is also called “Fort Scott Stories” and features the people he interviewed for the documentary. The second volume is “I Needed Paris.” It features photos from a trip to Paris that Cheers and a group of students from the Gordon Parks Academy in Wichita took in 2024.
According to Cheers, the book has been received well both locally and abroad.
“The response here has been good,” he said. “People are hungry for something positive in these trying times.”
For Sharp, the positive message of the documentary comes from people's faith and their connections with family and community.
“I think everybody takes away the same thing, just how intimate the stories were and how incredible of people we have here in Fort Scott,” he said.
But the documentary has the ability to resonate with people outside of Fort Scott as well, according to Cheers.
“It may be ‘Fort Scott Stories,’ but it's everybody's story, wherever you are, wherever you live,” he said. “The themes that are touched on in this film are as much Fort Scott as they are anywhere in this country and around the world.”
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