Bentonville Film Festivalchaired by the award-winning actress and gender equality advocate Geena Davishas announced the festival dates for 2023.
The annual Northwest Arkansas event takes place June 13-18 for its in-person component, with on-demand streaming of select programming and events available on the festival’s virtual platform through June 25.
“We can’t wait for our festival in 2023 and are so proud to have been formally championing underrepresented visionaries for nearly a decade,” Geena Davis, president of the Bentonville Film Festival, said in a statement. “BFF is designed to empower storytellers around the world with opportunities to showcase their unique stories. We are excited to be the meeting place for these diverse artists who share bold work while providing a global platform to give wider access to these artists and their stories.”
This year’s offerings will once again include competition titles within narrative, documentary, short films and episodes, as well as an expansion with additional adventure and animation categories. In a statement, Wendy Guerrero, the president of Bentonville Film Festival, shared her excitement at the festival’s return for an eighth edition, as well as its celebration of “independent film, artists and audiences.”
“With the culturally rich community, accessibility to outdoor adventure and focus on innovative technology, we are excited about the added short film categories in Animation and Adventure at the 2023 festival,” added Guerrero. “By expanding our program in these areas, it will further our mission to champion women, people of color, LGBTQIA+, people with disabilities, the elderly (50+) and adults in two new categories by 2023. “
Jason Netter, founder and CEO of Kickstart and producer of BFF, added: “We have a robust animation company with studios in multiple countries, so we seized the opportunity to help create and support a new short category to showcase diverse artists, content creators and audiences in the BFF community. We are honored to provide $20,000 in cash prizes plus studio support for this category.”
The event will also include Q&As and panels – both community and private filmmaker events – covering the challenging industry standards and the importance of independent artists in the arts of film, storytelling and technology. Participants also have access to curated studio spot films featuring conversations with celebrities.
In 2022, BFF also held both in-person and virtual elements, with more than 20,000 in-person attendees and more than 150,000 viewers engaging with the Bentonville streaming platform, the festival said. Last year’s festival boasted that more than 82 percent of the contest schedule came from content creators who identify as female or gender-nonconforming; 65 percent who identify as black, indigenous, a person of color, Asian or Pacific Islander; 62 percent who identify as LGBTQIA+; 42 percent who are over the age of 50; and 20 percent who identify as a person with a disability.