Feminism 101 | Geena Davis Launches Arkansas Film Fest For Women & Diversity
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Backed by a roster of corporate sponsors including Walmart and Coca Cola, actor Geena Davis has opened the 1st Annual Bentonville Film Festival running from April 5-9.
Davis explains that it’s not the first film festival to specialize in women and diversity, it’s the first film festival to promise theatrical releases for the winning entries. ‘It’s unheard of in the world, actually’ explained the Oscar-winning Davis. ‘It’s the only festival offering distribution across theatrical, digital and on TV and on DVD … That’s just part of our push to show how commercial diverse films can be.’
About 75 films will be screened over the four-day festival, which will also include panel discussions and a celebratory “A League of Their Own” baseball game, featuring appearances by Rosie O’Donnell and two original members of the All American Girls Professional Baseball League.
As founder of the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media in 2007, the actor plans to expand the festival beyond Bentonville to include educational outreach and events throughout the year.
Research funded by Davis’ institute and conducted by the University of Southern California found that women — who constitute more than half of the US population — typically make up just 17 percent of on-screen crowd scenes. As Davis points out, from Congress to the business world, this 17 percent female factor is unyieldingly consistent.
