The Bentonville Film Foundation, in collaboration with the founding partner, Walmart, and the present sponsor, Coca-Cola, announced on Saturday the winners of its 11th annual Bentonville film festival.
“Rosemead”, with Lucy Liu, won the first prize, winning the best narrative price for a feature film. In addition, Liu has received the Rising to the Challenge Prize, awarded to artists who support an independent film and “put their talent, their passion and their experience at stake in the service of empowerment of stories that are otherwise underrepresented”. Directed by Eric Lin, “Rosemead” was created earlier this month at the Tribeca Film Festival and focuses on a mother confronted with an impossible choice. The film received excellent criticisms, especially for Liu’s transformative performance. In a press release, the jury that voted on the prize noted: “The director Eric Lin triggers real conversations on the society in which we live through an intimate and unshakeable film based on real events in the San Gabriel Valley. The very essence of what great cinema can do. ”
The other narrative prices awarded included a special mention of the jury for the players in the whole at “Adult Children”, which held its world premiere on Thursday evening at the Fest. Written by Annika Marks and directed by Rich Newey, the dramatic comedy focuses on three adult brothers and sisters (Betsy Brandt, Thomas Sadoski and Aya Cash) and their adolescent semi-sister (Ella Rubin) who moves to monitor their brother Josh (Sadoski), a drug addict. The film also features Mimi Rogers as a mother and Olemich Tugas (during his beginnings in the cinema) as a young neighbor. Marks and Newey previously collaborated in the film “Killing Eleanor”, which won the first prize at the Scad Savannah Film Festival 2020. This film also balanced serious subjects with black humor and humanity exhibited in “adult children”.
A special mention of the jury for the vision of director was presented to “Color Book”, the story of director David Fortune of a newly widowed father trying to bring his son to a baseball match. The jury’s declaration congratulated: “The film finds deep themes about the world in which we live with a coherent order of beautiful visuals, performance and crunchy narration. The vision of fortune speaks by a confident hand as it has done several times before. ” Variety was also impressed and awarded the film a choice of criticism after his first of the Palm Springs Film Festival in January.
On the documentary side, “The Librarians” by director Kim A. Snyder won the best documentary price. Snyder, an nomine for the Oscars for the short “Death by Numbers”, is a real story of Book Banning and the heroic librarians who discover the truth. A special mention of the jury was awarded to the “increased control” of the director-producer Sam Feder, who focuses on the lawyer for civil rights Chase Strangio pleading for trans rights.
This year, the Fest presented a new category, Best Homegrown, which is awarded to the films made in the Arkansas region. The price of the best local feature film was awarded to “sovereign” of the writer-director Christian Swegal. The film features Nick Offerman, Dennis Quaid, Martha Plpton and Jacob Tremblay. He follows a father and a son in an extremist group against the police. A special mention of the jury (Homegrown) was given to “Beyond the Ashes: An Adaptive Trail Story” by director-producer Brock Wagner and Tim Johnson, a documentary on the Trailblazer, a development organization of the trails.
The other prices presented included the best episodic of “Born 2 Lose”, a driver of director Carlos Cardona about a 16-year-old Latin-American punk rocker. The prize for the best short film was awarded to “Lovin ‘Her”, which depicts the difficulties of the life of a trans woman. Special jury mentions have also been taken at the short “view from the ground” of directors Megan Griffiths and Mindie Lind, and “tender thoughts” of the modern fable of director Anndi Jinelle Liggett.
The Bentonville Film Festival started on June 16 and presented 28 competition films, including nine first in the world. It was presented by The Bffoundation, a non-profit organization focused on the promotion of under-represented voice of various storytellers. He joined forces with the Geena Davis Institute on gender in the media and Davis herself is a constant presence throughout the festival.
