Bentonville expands film festival

Web content, 18 shorts to augment 38 full-length works

BENTONVILLE — The third annual Bentonville Film Festival will expand its competition to include short films and series content, use new venues and feature a STEAM lounge geared toward youth, festival officials announced Wednesday.

A celebration is planned to mark the 25th anniversary of A League of Their Own with Geena Davis, Rosie O’Donnell, Lori Petty and other cast members. More details on the celebration will be released later, according to officials.

“I’m so excited to be heading into our third annual BFF,” Davis, festival co-founder and chairman, said in a news release.

The festival will take place May 2-7. Its competition is expanding to include 18 short films and four pieces of episodic and Web series content in addition to its 38 feature-length documentary and narrative films.

The festival claims to be the only film competition in the world to guarantee theatrical, television, digital and retail home entertainment distribution for its winners, through AMC Theatres, Lifetime and Starz.

Davis, an Academy Award winner, and Trevor Drinkwater, president and CEO of ARC Entertainment, co-founded the festival in 2015. Its mission is to champion women and diverse voices in media.

Davis also is the chairman of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, a research-based organization working with media and entertainment companies to educate and influence the need for gender balance.

A 2016 study by researchers at the University of Southern California found that only one-third of speaking characters — of 21,000 characters in more than 400 films and TV shows released from September 2014 to August 2015 — were female even though women make up slightly more than half of the U.S. population. The study also found that just more than 28 percent of characters with dialogue were from nonwhite ethnic groups while racial/ ethnic minorities comprise nearly 40 percent of the population.

“BFF is the once-a-year opportunity for studios, broadcasters, digital content creators, filmmakers and advertisers to convene and collaborate on improving how media reflects women and diverse voices,” Drinkwater said in the news release. “We are looking forward to another year of great progress.”

The inaugural year had an estimated regional economic impact of $1.3 million, according to Drinkwater.

Festival officials joined partnered with Visit Bentonville for the event’s second year to advertise in markets within driving distance such as Kansas City, Mo.; Tulsa and Oklahoma City.

Attendance increased from 37,000 the first year to 63,000 the second year, according to Gina Allgaier, festival chief engagement officer.

The Samsung Create Short Film Competition and the Lifetime Screenplay Competition will return. The festival also will include The Weinstein Co.’s Three Generations, starring Elle Fanning and Naomi Watts, and Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy 2.

Festival activities will again be focused on downtown Bentonville near the square. The new event center Record on Southwest A Street will be used for panels and workshops.

The Cinetransformers, mobile movie theaters, will return for their second year. The Meteor Guitar Gallery will again showcase nationally recognized acts in the AXE Music Lounge.

A new STEAM lounge will illustrate hands-on methods for using media to inspire youths to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering, arts and math, according to the release. The INsideOUT Lounge — where festival sponsors share products that focus on mind, body and spirit — also will expand.

Downtown Bentonville retailers and restaurateurs said they saw more foot traffic during last year’s festival.

“We’re getting to meet people who haven’t necessarily come to Oven and Tap before,” Luke Wetzel, co-owner and chef at Oven and Tap, said last year. “The attraction brings people to the square that we wouldn’t necessarily see on a regular basis.”