Bacon Family's 'Family Movie' Opens Bentonville Fest
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- Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick's "Family Movie" — which they both star in and direct — opened the 12th Annual Bentonville Film Festival in Northwest Arkansas on Tuesday night, with Geena Davis, Frances Fisher, and Catherine Hardwicke among the attendees.
- Sosie Bacon and Travis Bacon co-star in and produced the film, with Travis also composing the score; Sedgwick told Deadline the family conceived the project and hired writer Dan Beers together, calling the collaboration "beyond-our-wildest-dreams wonderful."
- "Family Movie" follows Jack Smith, a schlock horror director (Bacon) making a final low-budget film called "Blood Moon" starring his wife and daughter, with the production interrupted by the corpse of an annoying neighbor played by John Carroll Lynch.
- The film was shot in Round Top, TX, with Bacon writing in a director's statement that crews dealt with "crazy storms, scorpions, snakes and a lot of blood" while committing to practical kills and stunts.
- At a post-screening Q&A, Bacon and Sedgwick said they are still working on distribution, with Bacon noting "You would be kinda surprised how long the process has taken and how hard it is to put something like this together" — though the couple emphasized they want a theatrical release.
Why it matters: A theatrical indie from a celebrity family faces real distribution friction even with festival backing: Bacon acknowledged the process has been "hard" and longer than expected, signaling that star power alone doesn't guarantee screens. For the Bentonville Film Festival, the Bacon-Sedgwick premiere gave the 12th edition a recognizable opening-night draw to anchor a lineup running through June 21.
