Observations of day two of the Bentonville Film Festival.
• Geena Davis was the keynote speaker at the Bentonville/Bella Vista Chamber of Commerce's annual Small Business Awards Luncheon which was held at the Double Tree hotel Wednesday.
• People were turned away from a few film screenings held in cinetransformers because interest at the mobile theaters exceeded the 91-seat capacities.
• The Honey Bee Cinetransformer had some technical issues with the first film shown in it, Hello, My Name is Doris. The film had to be stopped with about 12 minutes left. It took about 15 minutes to correct the issue before the film's conclusion was shown.
• Downtown Bentonville parking was scarce during the first full day of film screenings for the Bentonville Film Festival. As traffic increased, a man riding an old fashioned bicycle called a pennyfarthing could be seen cycling through town.
• "I was frustrated with the lack of marginalized communities represented in the Oscars. Not only for major acting, but also behind the cameras. The directors, the cinematographers weren't represented. And not just those of a different race, but those of a different gender, sexual orientation, those differently abled and those of indigenous communities. It was my goal to use the hashtag to encompass everyone," April Reign, founder of the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite, said during a panel discussion Wednesday.
• Luvvie Ajayi, a popular Twitter personality known as "Awesomely Luvvie" and author of I'm Judging You participated in "Socialtainment," a panel discussion with Essence magazine. About starting difficult conversations among the public, she said her topics are always "conversations that I'm having with coworkers and friends. They're conversations we've thought about but are tough to say. I check myself with saying, did I [relay] sensible, grounded truth in a way that's thoughtful and not hateful?" If the answer is yes, she sends the tweet.
-- Melissa Gute, April Robertson
NW News on 05/05/2016