FAYETTEVILLE -- Geena Davis expects crowds to more than double at this year's Bentonville Film Festival. About 37,000 people attended last year's inaugural event and she speculated that number to approach 100,000 during this year's festival May 3-8.
She made that bold prediction Thursday during a lecture at the University of Arkansas that drew in a standing-room-only crowd of about 280 to Giffels Auditorium.
Bentonville Film Festival
A new attraction at this year’s festival will be three cinetransformers, a self-contained, 100-seat portable theater. Festival organizers will have one of these portable theaters on display for the public between noon and 4 p.m. Saturday in the Wal-Mart Stores Inc.’s home office parking lot at 702 S.W. Eighth St., Bentonville.
Source: Staff report
Bentonville Film Festival is May 3-8
Davis is founder of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media and co-founder of the local movie festival. The Bentonville Film Festival is focused on promoting the role of women and minorities in media.
Last year's competition included 45 films, and more than 85 percent of them are now in distribution, she said.
"If a movie that comes out that seems to do right by women, probably I had something to do with it," Davis said to laughs from the crowd. "But I'm not in this for the credit."
Gina Allgaier, the festival's vice president of marketing, said this year's schedule will be unveiled throughout this month with passes going on sale in a few weeks and single ticket sales starting in April.
Davis said it's vital to have a pro-active impact on commercial movies and encourage Hollywood to include more female characters in films.
"All I'm saying is boost the female population. I don't tell them to make more movies starring a female character," she said.
The award-winning actor said she's fortunate she is able to select roles that are strong women. She won the best supporting actress Oscar in 1988 for The Accidental Tourist and a Golden Globe in 2006 for her lead role in the television show Commander in Chief. She also earned nominations for roles in A League of Their Own and Thelma & Louise.
Davis' institute found there are three male characters for every one speaking character and the vast majority of female characters are narrowly stereotyped or hypersexualized.
"In G-rated movies we found that the animated female characters wear the same amount of sexually revealing clothing as in R-rated movies."
Film roles follow a trend across many job areas. Davis said women make up 18 percent of Congress, 19 percent of print journalists and 17 percent of directors on Fortune 500 boards. Only 17 percent of crowd scenes in children's movies are women, she said.
"Media can be the cure for the problem it creates," Davis said. "We don't have to wait for society to turn things around and then reflect that. We could change what the future looks like on screen, and then life can imitate art."
Television is doing a better job at gender parity, she said, and pointed to female roles as forensic scientists. Women saw that was a possible career path and now about 65 percent of people entering that field are female, she said.
"If they see it, they can be it," she said, echoing her motto she shares at the Bentonville Film Festival.
Rachel Blue, a University of Arkansas physics student, said attended the lecture because Thelma & Louise was one of her favorite movies growing up.
"Her talk crossed the film sector and into all areas of life," she said. "It was very empowering."
NW News on 03/11/2016