The Bentonville Film Festival is back for its 10th year!

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, everybody, the Bentonville Film Festival is back for its 10th year. We're going to talk about that on this week's edition of the Know the news podcast. Joining me on the podcast, I'm excited to welcome Wendy Guerrero. She's president of the Benville Film Festival. Wendy, you were kind enough to join us on this podcast last year, I believe, and it's great to have you back. Thanks for being here. [00:00:34] Speaker B: Thank you very much for having me. I'm excited to chat with you about our ten year anniversary. [00:00:40] Speaker A: So, yeah. 2024 Benville Film Festival runs June 10 to the 16th. April Wallace, our assistant features editor, has a preview on the festival that will appear in our WhatsApp section this Sunday. Wendy, I want to talk to you about year number ten. Tell me what ten years means to you. That's a milestone. [00:01:04] Speaker B: It's a significant milestone. And I personally have always been a staunch advocate for inclusive storytelling. Coming from a background of a filmmaker, it is important for me to make sure that those stories have a platform and that we have strong partners that can message those stories out. So being here for ten years in the middle of our country, sharing these stories is a really proud moment for me. And developing programs and addressing disparities and fostering pathways for gender and racial equity on and off screen is really something that I'm very passionate about and proud to be doing it through the Bentonville Film Festival. [00:01:53] Speaker A: Yeah. Give us an idea. How many films can we expect to see this year's festival? [00:02:01] Speaker B: Normally, we have over 75 to 85 films and offerings. You know, so this year is pretty big as well. I think we have about 80 films, including documentaries, narratives, short films, episodic films, which is more like television series. And, yeah, we have a lot of those taking place this next week. [00:02:30] Speaker A: Yeah. And so what's new at the festival this year? What are you most excited about or the kind of events that take place in the, throughout the week beyond the festival? [00:02:46] Speaker B: There's so many things that I'm excited about. I can talk about every single day and all the events that everybody should come to, but in terms of, you know, festivals, I feel like they're always about discovery. And we've discovered some pretty incredible filmmakers through our alumni network. We're bringing some of our filmmakers back to share the stories that they've developed after coming to the festival over the last ten years. So our alumni program has three films in it by women directors that have been to the festival before and now were coming back with their films. So Im really excited about bringing those programs back. The alumni. Im also really excited to lean into music again. We're having a lot of films that are premiering over at Tribeca coming down to the festival for their second screening. One of those films is a film that was entirely shot in Bentonville. It's called Nuked. It stars Anna Camp and a number of other well known faces that I think our audiences will know. And that was all filmed and shot in Bentonville, so I'm really excited about that one. And then we also have a documentary on one of the most profound, prolific, legendary female rockers of our time. Linda Perry is bringing a documentary that's premiering at Tribeca, and that second screening is going to be here on Thursday, and she's also going to be playing an intimate five song set after the screening. [00:04:31] Speaker A: Cool. Very cool. Yeah. As we all know, northwest Arkansas experienced a very severe weather event last Memorial Day weekend, and much of Bend county was affected, including the city of Benville. And, I mean, did that storm impact you guys at all and your plans? [00:04:57] Speaker B: We were first of all, concerned about our staff and our friends in northwest Arkansas that live here. So after reaching out to them and making sure that everyone was okay, we started our communication with a lot of the venues that we use at the festival. So we were lucky enough to not be impacted in terms of the venues that we're using and the planning that we've been doing all year to bring the festival to the community. So we feel very lucky to not have experienced any delays or any damage to those venues. But we do, we do want to express that we're excited to be offering a lot of the free programming that we have at the momentary, which is our festival home. We have a lot of free screenings. We're going to have a section called the Toy corner, where we're giving some toys and giveaways and interactive stuff. So I think it'll be a nice thing for the community to come and gather after some of these harrowing, you know, storms that have affected a lot of people in the community. So we're hoping that they can come and join us at the outdoor village and just get a little respite from what they've been dealing with the past couple of weeks. And there's a lot of free things happening, too. Very family oriented, free food, free screenings, Barbie and beetlejuice, and a bunch of activities that I think the community will really enjoy. [00:06:53] Speaker A: I'm fairly certain I asked you the same question last year. I'll ask it again. The public looks at the Benville Film Festival and sees an event that takes place for one week, and then it's done. Bringing this all together takes quite a bit of time and effort, right, that people don't see. Can you talk about what happens behind the scenes to bring this all together? [00:07:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it's a really fun process if you love movies, because it's watching a lot of movies. So when I am not running the events and our team is not preparing for the live events at the festival, we start the cycle all over. So when we close the festival on June 16, obviously we'll reconnect with everyone and do all of our recaps, but we open our submission cycle in August or September. And so that means that all of our filmmakers that want to submit for the 2025 festival, those portals will be open. So there's a website called Film Freeway, and that's where we do all of our submissions. And then we go back into screening mode and just trying to track all of our filmmakers that the films that we're interested in bringing for 2025, we build a whole strategy of what that's going to look like in terms of films. Obviously, Gina and Friends is a big component, which is an event that Gina does with some of celebrity friends to really highlight voices of the females and gender nonconforming artists that read these roles that were originally written for men. And so she kind of turns it on the table and has all women are gender nonconforming people read it with her. So we'll start casting that. We'll start securing down all of our usual venues and making sure we have contracts in place so we can do it again next year. So it really is a year round process. We also start identifying partners that we can do monthly screenings with. We really love to bring back films in the more slower periods where, you know, there's right now 75 films next week that people can go and see, but we like to bring them back throughout the year and focus on one film and have that filmmaker come in and showcase it to the community and talk about the reasons why they made the film and what other important moments about making the film that they want to share. So it really is a year round process, but it's fun. I really enjoy the process. I love beginning, middle, and end to anything. So it's really rewarding. [00:09:57] Speaker A: And remind us of the venues that you show at in Benville. [00:10:03] Speaker B: Our festival home currently is the momentary. So we will be doing our festival village out at the momentary and the momentary green. Our screening venue is at Fermentation hall and our festival headquarters, which people can go to if they have a pass is at the roadhouse. Some of our other venues are Thetan school. We'll be screening at the Performing arts Center there. We'll also be having our Gina and friends that I just talked about over there on Friday night. And then we'll be using skylight, which is a fantastic venue for us because it is such a unique space, and we can kind of take over that area and showcase a lot of our films over there. This year we're going back to Crystal Bridges Museum, which is a huge highlight for us because we started a lot of our programming there in the early days. And we'll be doing a very special conversation with Misty Copeland called shaping the narrative in collaboration with Crystal Bridges Museum. So those are all of our current venues. And every year there's something new that opens up, and we always like to utilize the new, the new buildings and all of the growth and activities that are happening every year in Bentonville City. It is a very welcoming home for us, and we are always excited to see what new spaces have opened or where we can expand the festival into. [00:11:41] Speaker A: You mentioned earlier the film that was filmed entirely in Benville, and we've seen a number of films, big films, being filmed in northwest Arkansas in recent years. Can you. I guess I wanted to talk, ask you about the, you know, general culture of film production in Arkansas and northwest Arkansas and how that has, you know, flourished and just since Benville Film Festival came along and what, you know, what you see happening here, what are your thoughts? [00:12:29] Speaker B: I think there is only room for growth. You know, in ten years, we've brought over 10,000 people to this region that are somehow related to film as a producer, director, financier, acquisitions, you know, you name it. So the region has certainly been exposed to a lot of creatives, and those creatives really respond to the region and are always asking us questions about how do we film here at the top of the festival. For our filmmakers that are coming in, we do something called the filmmaker retreat, and we like to invite the film commissioner to that and share about the film incentives that the state of Arkansas gives filmmakers. So over the years, we've socialized that at the filmmaker retreat, and many, many filmmakers desire to come back and film at the festival, and a lot of them have. So I just think there's only room for growth. And it's such a wonderful place to continue to grow the film community because it's great jobs, you know, these jobs, if we can grow the community here, there's a lot of opportunity for economic development and for really union jobs that are good jobs for people to have to raise their families, and they don't have to travel out of state and go from gig to gig to gig. If we can build a stronger film community in Bentonville than or in northwest Arkansas, a lot of these people can just live here and work in the entertainment industry year round. That I think we could take a lot of overflow from Atlanta, you know, if we had real infrastructure that studios and filmmakers can use in terms of stage stages. You know, we have a few stages in Arkansas and Fayetteville and then the one that we use out in Hiawasi for our filmmaker retreat. And I think that the demand is only gonna grow as we move, as this area starts to grow. [00:14:54] Speaker A: Do you know how many people you're expecting for this year's festival and what would make you happy? [00:15:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, in our, we always kind of compare it to before COVID years. So we had about 65,000 people in 2019 coming through the festival for the week. And whether they engaged at the festival village or went to a panel discussion or went to some films over that week span, we had about 65,000 people. In 2020, we had close to 19,000. And as we start getting further away from the 2020 years, we've only increased our numbers this year. I would be really excited if we had, we're expecting about 40,000 people to come through over the course of the seven days now because it's a longer festival. So it's starting on Monday, June 10, and it goes all the way through Sunday, 16 June. So I'd be really happy with 40,000 people, but we want to grow it and continue to get back to those 2019 numbers. [00:16:11] Speaker A: Well, for people who are interested in attending, where can they go to find out the vital information besides our paper this Sunday? [00:16:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, you can definitely find all the programming in the insert this Sunday. So if you're a physical person and you want to start circling and cross referencing the films that you want to see and the events that you want to go to, you certainly can do that. We also have a website. It's www.bentonvillefilm.org. there is a tab called 2024 festival program. If you click on that, it'll tell you by Alphabet, it'll tell you by day what events are happening and what films are happening. So you can also get a pass. I think a festival pass is a really unique way to experience the festival. It gets you into some private events, and it gets you into that filmmaker headquarters, which is really kind of a hub for our filmmakers, our partners, a lot of the press that comes. So you'll be able to really meet some interesting people. If you have a pass, you'll be able to get access to the filmmakers, the festival hq. And then even if you're just not wanting to watch a film in a theater, there's all the activities going on at that outdoor village, which is just a super fun place to take your family. And we'll be culminating on that Saturday night with a fireworks show at 930. So on Friday, on Saturday, June 15, there will be free fireworks after our Beetlejuice screening that night. [00:17:55] Speaker A: Well, wendy, I'm sure you're plenty busy today, and I really appreciate your time spending time with us today, so I'm going to let you go. But again, thank you for being here. [00:18:09] Speaker B: Oh, my pleasure. Thank you for supporting the festival and giving us a platform to share about our programming. I really appreciate it. [00:18:17] Speaker A: We're going to take a quick break and be right back after this brief message. Stick with us. [00:18:22] Speaker C: If you're enjoying this podcast, consider a newspaper subscription to the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette or the River Valley Democrat Gazette. We have a special offer for our podcast listeners, so visit nwa online.com nwapodcast to get started. You can also click the subscribe button on our websites, nWA online.com and rivervalleydemocrategazet.com, or call us at 479-684-5509 and be sure to say that youre a podcast listener. Now back to the show. [00:18:53] Speaker A: I have a few other stories I want to talk about that we have coming in the northwest Arkansas Democratic Gazette this weekend. Bentonville is in the beginning stages of a new parks project, the Benville Adult Wiltness Center. Thomas Ascenti will have that story. Stacy Bribery takes a look at the annual list of projects the city of Fayetteville intends to pay for with its federal community development block grant money. This year, they're getting almost $800,000. Stacey also will be covering this weekend's retreat meeting of the Fayetteville Planning Commission, and we'll have a story on that as well. The Republican Party of Arkansas will be in Rogers this Saturday for its state convention. Political reporter Doug Thompson will report from that event. And in Fort Smith, the Boys and Girls Club just received a $100,000 donation for its steam lab at the Jeffrey Glidewell unit. Sadie Lucicero will be covering that. Our what's up section Sunday is full of fun and exciting things to see and do in our area. Besides the film fest you'll find stories about upcoming performances such as responders at theater, squared sticks and foreigner at the AMP, and the debut production of the natural state performing arts Little Women at Arkansas Arts Academy. All this and more will be available to our subscribers on our tablet and smartphone apps and at our websites, nWA online.com and river valleydemocrategazette.com. know the news is a weekly podcast brought to you by the newsrooms of the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette and the River Valley Democrat Gazette. Again, I'm Dave Perozyk, your podcast host this week. Thank you, as always, for listening or watching. And don't forget to check us out next week. Take care.