Bentonville readies for inaugural film festival

Event expected to draw big crowds, Hollywood talent

Almost five months after announcing the Bentonville Film Festival, Trevor Drinkwater remains resolute in his initial belief in the concept.

Ticket sales continue to outstrip expectations, filmmakers jumped at the chance to submit their creations and a strong group of celebrities committed to participate.

"It confirms the mission of the festival is being fulfilled," said Drinkwater, chief executive officer for presenting organization ARC Entertainment. "The town of Bentonville, and Northwest Arkansas, was ready for a film festival."

Drinkwater pledges his production team is ready for the inaugural event, which will take place May 5-9 in various venues in Northwest Arkansas.

Drinkwater partnered with actress Geena Davis and her Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media to create the festival. The 54 films selected for inclusion share a common interest in gender and diversity issues. Thousands of tickets will be sold for the festival, and Drinkwater said Bentonville enters the scene as one of the larger events of this type in the country.

Setting a mark

As a first-year event, measuring success is not easy, Drinkwater said. The abbreviated schedule on which planners drafted and constructed the festival limited the size and scope in its first year. ARC Entertainment and partner sponsors such as Walmart, Coca-Cola and AMC Theaters will have an entire year to plan for the 2016 event. Drinkwater said the festival needs to only establish its presence in the first year and build on that for future festivals.

"Objective one is to put on the best festival we can and use that success to propel us into the future," Drinkwater said.

Early returns show promise.

"Every time we've had an expectation of support, we've exceeded it," Drinkwater said.

The first festival already has generated a substantial amount of interest, said Kalene Griffith, president and chief executive officer of the Bentonville Convention & Visitors Bureau.

"The quick sellout of the limited All Access Passes and the 'Pitch Perfect 2' screening is a great example of the area's response to the film festival," she said. "We continue to hear people talk about the excitement of the screenings and the panel discussions."

Ed McClure, a member of the board of directors for Rogers Little Theater and the chairman of the organization's production committee, said Northwest Arkansas residents are fortunate to have such an event.

"It's a world-class festival, with recognizable, bankable stars," McClure said.

Victory Theater, the downtown home of Rogers Little Theater, will serve as one of the festival's official venues. Discussions to use the nearly 100-year-old theater started about three months ago, McClure said. The venue was originally a movie theater, including in 1929, when it showed the first movie with sound in Rogers history.

McClure said the Victory Theater will host a series of selections from the film festival during the day. At night, the theater hosts the adjunct Victory Film Fest, a series of films with a more mature edge than those officially selected for the Bentonville Film Festival. Tickets are $8 per movie, the same rate as official festival entrants.

McClure said his organization can only benefit from the partnership with the film festival, and that it might raise the profile of the group's regular theater offerings.

"Art begets art," he said. "Whether it's music or theater or dance, it's all good."

A bonanza for Bentonville

Exposure for Bentonville is a critical element, and Walmart played a central role in the process.

Drinkwater said Bentonville presented the right fit because of the beauty of the town and the surrounding amenities, such as Crystal Bridges and the network of nearby trails. Drinkwater also saw an opportunity to expose guests to a town he's been visiting for 20 years in various roles in the Walmart vendor community.

A meeting between Walmart senior director of films Louis Greth and Drinkwater put the festival in motion. Greth, in the interest of including more films that championed gender or diversity roles on store shelves, pitched a concept for a film festival exploring those ideas. Drinkwater and his colleagues at Los Angeles-based ARC Entertainment, which distributes movies to theaters and retailers such as Walmart, contacted their industry sources. Among those were Davis, a longtime advocate for women in the film industry.

"(Drinkwater) was so fired up about it, and the idea just kind of took off from there," Greth said.

Festival organizers acknowledge many attendees will come from outside of Arkansas, but did not provide a breakdown of demographics. Greth, who is based in Bentonville, said the region should feel a sense of pride for what the out-of-town guests will see.

"I can't believe my town is hosting this," Greth said. "They'll be introduced to a wonderful community."

Rob Nelson, chef and owner of downtown Bentonville restaurant Tusk & Trotter, expects the crowds to come. He will have extra staff on hand during the film festival, including for a dinner his restaurant will cater for 250 to 300 guests at an exclusive film festival party.

With the downtown location in full swing as well, it's the equivalent of having two restaurants working at once. Nelson said festival organizers didn't request anything out of the ordinary from him, and the menu he offers the week of the festival will mirror the one always offered at the restaurant.

"They were very interested in what we do here. We do high-South cuisine, with the local products that are making the Bentonville dining scene known," he said.

Nelson and his staff have gone over protocol on interacting with any of the celebrities who might walk through the front door. The idea, he said, is to treat them like everyone else and avoid getting starstruck. But he admitted there are flaws in that theory.

"That's going to be hard. I grew up watching De Niro movies," he said.

Initial offerings

Yes, that Robert De Niro, the veteran actor featured in nearly 100 movies, including Godfather II, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and more recently, Silver Linings Playbook. De Niro joins high-profile guests such as Rosie O'Donnell, Melissa Joan Hart, Alysia Reiner, Soledad O'Brien and festival chairwoman Geena Davis as confirmed for spots on the numerous panel discussions sprinkled among the film offerings. Many filmmakers and actors are expected to join the festivities during the course of the week.

Drinkwater originally said most of the venues would be within walking distance of the downtown Bentonville square. But availability of potential venues and a concern over finding enough parking in the downtown corridor led organizers to spread out its footprint, including the screening location in Rogers and the sold-out closing film, a preview of Pitch Perfect 2 at the AMC Fiesta Square location in Fayetteville.

The panels take place at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Northwest Arkansas Community College's Walmart Auditorium or at the Bentonville Public Library. Films can be viewed at Victory Theater, the Four Points by Sheraton, Grace Point Church and NWACC's White Auditorium.

Drinkwater said he focused on finding venues that could be converted into a quality experience. The Story Theatre inside Grace Point Church became of the largest of the film venues, with the ability to accommodate 1,000 guests.

Films submitted to the festival came from all over the country. The festival is particularly blessed with quality documentaries and narrative tales, Drinkwater said. A group of University of California Los Angeles film students helped narrow the initial pool of applicants. Further cuts were made by Bentonville Film Festival staff members.

The festival's jury was announced on Friday afternoon, and it consists of industry figures such as Emilio Estevez, Judge Reinhold and Darla K. Anderson, the producer of Toy Story 3 and Cars. Gil Robertson, president of the African American Film Critics Association, will serve as jury president. The 40-member jury will select the top films, which will be recognized during a closed-to-the-public awards ceremony May 9 at Old High Middle School.

None of the movies selected for the festival carry an "R" rating, a move designed to keep the festival family friendly. If submitted films had yet to receive an official rating from the Motion Picture Association of America, Bentonville Film Festival staff members sorted through them to determine if the films in question fit the focus of diversity or gender advancement while staying family friendly, Drinkwater said.

Each of the films must also be appropriate for distribution, as the winning film receives screen time courtesy of AMC Theaters and distribution via Walmart stores. That's significant: Walmart sells more movies than any other company in the United States, Greth said. The distribution deal with Walmart and AMC Theaters is the only film festival award of its kind, Greth said.

"It's extremely important. That will really separate us from other festivals," he said.

Ongoing demand

Demand for tickets exceeded expectations, Drinkwater said. Multiday passes sold out promptly, as did tickets for special events such as the screening of Pitch Perfect 2. Individual tickets remain for most movies, and tickets remain for several of the community-oriented events, including a concert on May 6 at the Arend Arts Center in Bentonville. Tickets for a softball game at Arvest Ballpark featuring Davis and O'Donnell, both of whom starred in the women's baseball movie A League of Their Own, are already sold out. All tickets have also been claimed for the series of panel discussions at Crystal Bridges, including those featuring De Niro and Davis.

Available tickets will be sold from the main box office, located in the former Benton County Daily Record office on Southwest A Street just west of the Bentonville square. The location also serves as a pickup location for tickets reserved online. Tickets can also be purchased at any of the movie venues, starting approximately one hour prior to the first ticketed screening or event. Additionally, "rush" tickets will be available outside many of the venues and are designed for last-minute pickup.

Even those without tickets can experience part of the festival. A sponsor village will be established just to the northeast of the Bentonville square and will allow guests to see demonstrations from movie industry businesses. The sponsors village runs May 5-7 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., May 8 from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and May 9 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Drinkwater says the village will be the equivalent of five First Friday events in a row.

Griffith, of Bentonville's visitors bureau, said a finalized venue map, transportation map and schedule of public events will be available through their East Central Avenue office sometime this week.

Plans for the 2016 edition of the Bentonville Film Festival are already underway, Drinkwater and Greth said.

NW News on 04/26/2015

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