Impossible’ Finale And Casting In Hollywood

Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning has received a lot of attention for its stunts – Tom Cruise hanging off a biplane, for instance, and a burning parachute sequence. Oscar-winning actress Geena Davis is praising the film for a different reason – its approach to casting.

“Did you see the new Mission: Impossible yet?” she asked as we sat down at the Bentonville Film Festival in Arkansas, which she chairs. “I noticed the great diversity in there, women left and right, all over the place, and people of color and it’s just normal and natural. But they clearly, in my estimation, put a lot of thought into that.”

Davis has been trying to shift the paradigm on casting of television and film through the Geena Davis Institute on Gender and Media, which she founded two decades ago, and through her leadership of BFF, now in its 11^th year.

“In my institute we focus on what’s on screen,” Davis explains. “And in the festival, we take into account both on screen and behind the camera. So, our directors and writers and producers are very diverse as well as [the cast] on screen.”

Of films in competition at BFF this year, the festival notes:

●          66% are from creators identifying as female or gender non-conforming

●          51% identify as BIPOC, Asian, or Pacific Islander

●          29% identify as LGBTQIA+

●          18% are filmmakers over the age of 50

●          12% identify as a person with a disability

Similarly, for narrative-fiction films in competition, the festival reports 60% feature leads who identify as women or gender non-conforming; virtually half the cast members are BIPOC, and 17% represent people with disabilities.

The word “Include” appears in the Bentonville Film Festival logo. That may seem like a bold statement in the current polarized climate, but Davis doesn’t see it in political terms but as a matter of common sense.

It’s about “basically reflecting the population as it is, which is, in my opinion, profoundly not controversial,” she says. “It just makes sense to reflect the people that are watching the movie.”

She adds, “Ultimately, what I think we’re trying to prove is that films with unique voices that represent the population are very commercial. Research shows that the more diversity there is on screen, the more money the movie makes. But people haven’t really taken that to heart as much as they could.”

Walmart, headquartered in Bentonville, founded the festival with inclusion in mind.

“Each department of Walmart has to come up with their sort of public outreach, public service initiative that they do,” Davis tells Deadline. “The home video department thought, ‘Hey, what if we were to have a film festival for representation, that is about representation?’ And they thought that was a good idea. And then I was thought of as someone who might be — they needed to get a Robert Redford or Robert De Niro, or somebody named Robert to be the person fronting it. And they thought of me, and I came here and talked to everybody, and I really wanted to do it.”

The idea went from concept to reality in rapid order.

“We decided to put it on very quickly, so we only had about five months to put it all together for the first iteration,” Davis recalls. “But we pulled it off and it gets bigger and better every year… This year we’re like, wow, everything is just completely sold out and we need bigger and bigger venues for not just the films, but the panels.”

This year’s festival, which began Tuesday and wraps on Sunday, includes nine world premieres and 28 films in competition. Actress Lucy Liu (Kill Bill: Vol. 1, Charlie’s Angels, Elementary) will receive the festival’s Rising to the Challenge Award on Saturday. Today Show weatherman and host Al Roker was honored on Tuesday. Saturday will feature the appearance of one of the most beloved characters in media, a furry red creature who stands for love and inclusion by the name of Elmo. At an outdoor event, “Read with Sesame Street’s Elmo & Geena,” Davis and Elmo will read The Girl Who Was Too Big for the Page — “a story celebrating confidence, taking up space in the world and finding your voice.”

On Friday afternoon, Davis will take part in what has become a BFF annual tradition – the Geena & Friends event where an all-star lineup of noteworthy actors “reimagine memorable movie scenes through a woman’s lens,” as the festival describes it. “A fun and poignant way to explore how refreshing it can be to expand our vision of who can be cast in what roles!”

This year, joining Davis are Academy Award nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo (The Penguin), Toks Olagundoye (Frasier), Alysia Reiner (The Diplomat), and Brenda Song (Running Point).

“It’s meant to be very funny and it’s very silly seeing women act out a scene from Reservoir Dogs or The Godfather and stuff. We do all kinds of crazy stuff. It’s really fun,” she comments, adding the event highlights whether on screen roles given to men could, in fact, have been played by women if a more inclusive mindset prevailed. “People love it and laugh their heads off, but it’s also meant to be a little bit educational.”

Davis says she has major plans for the Bentonville Film Festival going forward. “I don’t see this as a niche little indie film festival,” she observes. “I really think we’re aiming for something much bigger than that, which is how commercial these movies [with diverse casts] can be.”

She’s not afraid to think on a grand scale, noting that one year at the festival, “We had the Stay Puft Marshmallow guy, the four-story tall [character]. My dream is to have — they don’t let us decorate around the town square — but I want like 20-foot-high inflated letters [spelling out]: BFF.”