Arkansas Cinema Society is still a fledgling organization, and therefore maybe still vulnerable to the forces that prey on young things, but there's something solid-feeling about this group.
The third edition of ACS' annual Filmland series of events kicks off at Central Arkansas Library System's Ron Robinson Theater this evening with the premiere of Men & Women of Distinction: Gov. Mike Beebe, a documentary by the society's executive director and co-founder Kathryn Tucker that was commissioned by AETN.
There's an after-party at Sonny Williams Steak Room, and before the screening there will be a special tribute to Matt DeCample, who died in March after a long, fierce battle with cancer. (Matt, who was everybody's friend, served as the governor's spokesman and later handled the media for ACS, so it's especially fitting he's remembered tonight.)
Expect tears and funny stories and gray and blue bureaucrat suits brushing up against a more bohemian lot; the sort of mix-and-mingle that gives a city vitality and brings lively minds together.
Later in the week, ACS will bring in a few filmmaker types who might almost qualify as selfie-bait celebrities to show their movies and answer questions in panel discussions, and maybe most importantly to hang out and talk with aspiring artists who might approach them with varying degrees of dread and awe.
It's something we need here, in a state that's underestimated nearly as often as it's misunderstood: to be reassured that artists are not fallen gods but simply people who have got above their raising.
What ACS is putting on this week is not exactly a film festival. It doesn't offer a smorgasbord of movies or sprawl across several venues like the old Little Rock Film Festival did. It looks for movies with wide appeal to fill up its theaters to support year-round screenings and ongoing educational programs--including a filmmaking lab for teenage girls, the products of which will be screened at this year's festival--and to slowly grow the organization's reach and ability to serve as a resource for Arkansas filmmakers.
It's a serious group, involved with doing good work all year long.
But this is the week it celebrates, and the lineup is highly palatable. Andrew Stanton (whose 2007 animated movie WALL-E is one of the best movies of any sort made this century) is bringing his newest, Toy Story 4. The heart-gripping documentary Free Solo is coming, as are episodes of the second season of Stranger Things on the big screen. Actor-turned-director Joel Edgerton will be here to show Boy Erased, based on Arkansas native Garrard Conley's memoir.
And Jeff Nichols, the Little Rock screenwriter and director who co-founded ACS with Tucker, will sit down with the filmmakers and intelligently interrogate them after the screenings.
Maybe there's not something for everyone this week, but you can't say they didn't try.
Editorial on 08/21/2019