It was fairly early on in the coronavirus crisis when Geena Davis and Wendy Guerrero realized their Bentonville Film Festival could not go on as planned. The annual event in Bentonville, Arkansas, normally scheduled for late April or early May, was put on hold, along with virtually everything else in the world. But unlike Cannes and SXSW and Comic-Con, Bentonville 2020 is ultimately happening after all.
Kicking off on August 10, this year’s Bentonville Film Festival will be held primarily via Zoom, with a few drive-in events still taking place in Bentonville. With its focus on underrepresented voices, and this year’s film slate more than 80% directed by women and 65% directed by BIPOC, the Bentonville Film Festival might look different this year, but it feels more important than ever. “Our design from the beginning was to be radically inclusive, and we certainly have been,” Davis, a two-time Oscar winner and the founder of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media, says on this week’s Little Gold Men podcast. “But this current climate obviously has reminded us just how important it is to stick with our mission, which is to elevate the voices of the filmmakers and the stories that they tell. It’s been paramount to us.”