Geena Davis and the Bentonville Film Festival

Geena Davis has taken her love for film, and her desire to see more women in film into creating the Bentonville Film Festival. The festival is co-founded by Geena Davis and Trevor Drinkwater. The Bentonville Film Festival (BFF) opened in 2015, and it mission is to champion women and diverse voices in media. The second edition took place 3 – 8 May, 2016

If you’re a filmmaker, and you make films about female characters, the Benton Film Festival is a great place to get your work noticed.

This year the BFF featured approximately 34 films in competition including 16 documentaries and 18 narratives and expanded its platform with the addition of a short film competition. With the help of founding sponsor Walmart, presenting sponsor Coca-Cola and distribution partners AMC Theatres, Lifetime and Starz, the Bentonville Film Festival remains the only festival to offer guaranteed distribution to the winning festival films for Audience, Best Family Film and Jury Awards. Walmart and BFF have a shared mission to champion diversity and inclusion.

As the largest seller of physical movies, Walmart is always seeking great content to offer its customers and BFF provides an avenue to identify compelling films from women and diverse filmmakers. In its inaugural year, the festival saw more than 37,000 attendees and was able to grant distribution to 87% of its competition films through Walmart and other BFF distribution partners.