2020 BisonBison Film Festival goes online

In response to the Covid-19 outbreak, the 2020 BisonBison Film Festival: A Student Competition (BBFF) will be a live streaming event on the website www.BisonBisonFilmFestival.org. The student films will be posted live the evenings of Friday, April 3 and Saturday, April 4, starting at 7 p.m. CST.

“This is new uncharted territory for BBFF,” said Board president Christina Rich-Splawn. “We are calling this ‘The Social Distance Compliant-Binge Worthy-Comfy Clothes’ Celebration of Student Films! By going to our website the evenings of April 3 and 4, you can watch the movies with your significant others, dog, cat, goldfish, whatever, from the comfort of your favorite chair with your favorite beverage.”

Immediately following the last movie on Saturday April 4, the three Awards of Excellence will be announced live. Each award is worth $1,000. The jurors selecting the winners are: Ricki Maslar, prominent executive, casting director and producer; Christopher Sneed, Broadcast Program Manager for the city of Enid, OK, and director of the FLY Film Festival; and Al Mertens, an Oklahoma screenwriter and independent film director.

Additionally, the scheduled workshop presentations will be available for download from a link on the website. The download link will only be active for a week: Friday April 3 to end of day Friday April 10. The presentations are “Kids, Critters and Contracts” a discussion of these liabilities in filmmaking by Oklahoma attorney Jennifer Tunder. The other presentation is “I Wanna Be a Producer . . . Wait, What Does a Producer Do?” from TV and film producer Lazara Gonzalez. BBFF workshops are sponsored by the Ponca City Arts and Humanities Council.

BisonBison Film Festival is partially funded by the Oklahoma Arts Council, National Endowment of the Arts, local businesses and individual donations.