The new Bentonville Film Festival brings to Northwest Arkansas a five-day lineup of more than 50 entertainment pictures and documentaries, panels and movie-star appearances Tuesday through Saturday. Organizers bill the event as "championing women and diversity in films."
Sponsored by Wal-Mart, the festival was founded by Academy Award-winning actress Geena Davis (The Accidental Tourist) and ARC Entertainment Chief Executive Officer Trevor Drinkwater. Actors Natalie Portman, Bruce Dern and Samuel L. Jackson are among the advisers, according to the event's website.
The Bentonville
Film Festival
Tuesday-Saturday at Northwest Arkansas Community College, the Four Points by Sheraton hotel and other venues in and around Bentonville.
Admission: Passes are sold out. Single tickets: $8 general admission for screenings, $15 for panels and lectures at the festival’s main box office in the former Benton County Daily Record building, 104 S.W. A St., Bentonville.
Information: bentonvillefilmfest…
The festival encompasses several venues in and around Bentonville. Films include a fantasy about wizards, a children's movie about a friendly bee and a documentary on the life of American Ballet Theatre dancer Misty Copeland.
Davis and Rosie O'Donnell will join in a four-inning softball game at 6:30 p.m. Thursday in Springdale at Arvest Ballpark, where their 1992 comedy, A League of Their Own, about women's baseball, will be shown after the game.
Actor Robert De Niro will present a documentary about his father, Remembering the Artist, at 3 p.m. Thursday at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. Robert De Niro Sr. was an expressionist painter. (Free admission, first come, first served.)
Panels and lectures will cover such subjects as women in advertising, screenwriting, deal-making, gender stereotyping and other movie-related topics.
The festival's closing film will be Pitch Perfect 2 at 6 p.m. Saturday at the AMC Fiesta Square 16 in Fayetteville. The movie, about a women's singing group, opens theatrically May 15.
The festival's other films include:
NARRATIVE FILMS
• Mythica: A Quest for Heroes. A young magician (Melanie Stone) learns from wizard Kevin Sorbo (TV's Hercules): 8 p.m. Wednesday, Story Theatre, Grace Point Church, 1201 N.E. McCollum Drive; 8:30 p.m. Thursday, Four Points by Sheraton hotel, 211 S.E. Walton Blvd.
• Maya the Bee. The animated bee makes friends with a grasshopper to solve the mystery of who stole the queen bee's royal jelly: 10 a.m. Friday, Grace Point Church.
• Dial a Prayer. William H. Macy plays the pastor behind a prayer hotline: 10 a.m. Tuesday, Four Points by Sheraton.
• Last Days in the Desert. Jesus (Ewan McGregor) vs. the devil: 12:30 p.m. Friday, White Auditorium, Northwest Arkansas Community College, One College Drive.
• 10 Days in a Madhouse. Pioneering journalist Nellie Bligh (Caroline Barry) snoops undercover in a women's insane asylum: 9 p.m. Tuesday, Four Points by Sheraton.
DOCUMENTARIES
• A Ballerina's Tale. Biography of dancer Misty Copeland: 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, Northwest Arkansas Community College.
• Girl From God's Country. Documentary about Nell Shipman and other women in silent films: 5:45 p.m. Thursday, Four Points by Sheraton.
• That Sugar Film. What sugar does to a person's health: 5 p.m. Tuesday, Rogers Little Theater, 116 S. Second St., Rogers.
• (Dis)honesty: The Truth About Lies. How and why people fib: 12:15 p.m. Thursday, Rogers Little Theater.
• Meet the Patels. Indian-American Ravi Patel introduces his girlfriend to his parents, and his sister films the encounter: 12:30 p.m. Tuesday, Grace Point Church; 8 p.m. Wednesday, Four Points by Sheraton.
Style on 05/03/2015