Virtually Entertained: Attending Geena Davis’ Inclusive Bentonville Film Fest in a Pandemic

Film fests are going virtual in 2020. Those that aren’t canceled, anyway. And, for the record, it’s glorious.

I’ve long envied friends taking off weeks to attend Cannes, Venice, Toronto, Telluride, all the biggies, the expensive film fests with the whosits and the deals and the networking and the parties and the in-the-middle-of-the-industry madness of it all. Those coveted experiences, prohibitive for the masses in so many ways, seem to be necessarily gone or at least diminished in our 2020 Covidian Era. But the past couple of days, I’ve been enjoying my first virtual film fest, and–introvert that I am–I’m not missing the lines and the crowds and the crazy scheduling of how to get from one venue to the next in time to be in line for that hot screening and where to find time to grab food on the way or when to sleep. No, I’m not missing that part at all.

Thirty minutes syncing a festival Roku app and my iPhone calendar, and I’m all scheduled for the week, each festival entry accessible from the most comfortable venue around: my couch. I don’t even have to pick a cute-but-professional, not-too-wrinkled outfit. Covid hair and jammies, plus a bowl of cereal, and I’m all set. No mask or distancing required.

My virtual festival this week is the Bentonville Film Festival, held in my home state of Arkansas. There are live-streamed panels this year, and some crowd-pleasing drive-in movie events for the locals, but most all the action takes place online.

BFF, as it’s appropriately known, is the brainchild of Academy Award-winning actress Geena Davis, its founder and chair. Now in its sixth year, BFF expressly exists to celebrate and promote diversity in filmmaking, Davis’ particular passion, with an emphasis on female, LGBTQ+, ethnic, and other types of minorities pursuing storytelling through film. Eighty percent of the 2020 festival entries are by female directors, 65% by BIPOC, and more than 40% are by LGBTQ+ filmmakers. The stories told break barriers, illustrating the lives of minorities and marginalized people across the world, sharing their stories in their own voices. This film festival is all about championing inclusion. Perhaps it’s appropriate that going virtual means more festival-lovers can be included.

In 2004 Davis established her own research institute, the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, to do the hard work of studying the industry through a social scientific lens laser-focused on gender representation in scripts, casts and crews. In a July 31 L.A. Times interview, Davis shared that over the years she’s personally brought her institute’s research findings to dozens of studios, guilds, networks and production companies, presenting the research and imploring them to delve into the data and use it to inform their choices in developing scripts, characters and in hiring talent. She told the Times, “The great thing has been that they’ve always said, ‘Please come back.’”

Her progress is encouraging. Her institute’s 2019 data reveals that children’s programs have for the first time reached gender parity, with similar successful results in all but R-rated films. Representations of people of color are also improving, though those have further to go.

At her own festival, the selections at BFF to date have been more likely to show up at the Indie Spirit Awards than at the Oscars. These are not stories and voices likely to show up in mainstream multiplexes–which is exactly the point. That they haven’t played much of a role in the Oscar race, my–and many others on this site’s–all-too-consuming year-round obsession, in no way diminishes their worthiness as art. It’s exciting to have access to indie fare and to these voices from women, from queer and transgendered and Asian and LatinX and disabled and every combination of minority voices you can dream up. The Academy Awards, as we all know, could use more diversifying.

Ava & Bianca documentary short by Rachel Fleit examines the friendship between two cinematographers, both transgendered women.

Yesterday I watched a beautifully shot documentary short, Ava & Bianca, about a friendship between two transgendered female cinematographers who filmed each other for the documentary. “That’s certainly a niche,” my husband quipped. But thanks to these two women sharing the story of their friendship, I now have a positive frame of reference for trans female DP relationships. That’s a tiny something that enriches my life in a small way as a CIS-gendered married white woman. If I were a trans artist who had never seen anyone like myself positively portrayed on screen or behind the camera? Seeing these two trans friends prop each other up in their successful careers would be absolutely transformative and empowering. These stories matter, whether or not each one directly speaks to our personal lived experience. They are important contributions to our collective, accessible art, each with its own beauty. They broaden our world by telling the stories of the highly specific.

One important element of Bentonville Film Fest is that the winning films don’t just receive the customary film festival laurel wreath icon to share as an endorsement on the poster and website. Part of the prize package for the winning films is guaranteed theatrical distribution. Can you grasp what a big deal that is for these minority filmmakers and stories? I haven’t yet heard how, in these Covidian, shuttered-theater times BFF intends to honor that agreement in 2020, but I feel confident that whether the winning films end up in theaters in the near future or make their way as exciting fresh video-on-demand content, Bentonville Film Fest will help these filmmakers connect with audiences.

The Donut King documentary by Alice Gu won a special jury prize at SXSW’s virtual festival.

The 2020 lineup, as with every festival, is a carefully curated mix of voices. Some entries already have festival circuit buzz; some are making their world premieres. It is also full of talent and promise, with the vibrance of often-young voices sharing their stories. Characters and subjects leap off the screen with an authentic immediacy not often found in more mainstream fare. One throughline across the narrative features and documentaries, full-length films and shorts, is a certain urgency and intensity of the filmmakers to share their perspectives. Two days in, and I’ve already discovered some beauties, with 90% of the festival program yet to watch.

I’ve got my couch-nest, my schedule before me, and some fresh art to experience. It feels so good to be soaking up new films again, even without the theatrical experience. I’ll be bringing more of my thoughts on the best of #BFF2020 in the coming days. Undertold stories and underheard voices still have much to say, and Bentonville Film Fest has found filmmakers who say their truths well. It’s going to be a fun week.

But first, time to stick some movie-butter popcorn in the microwave. It’s 2020, and we’re making this work.

A still from BFF narrative feature competition film, Take Out Girl, a based-on-a-true-story drug drama by director Hissoni Johnson.