Lady Filmmakers Winner Heads to Geena Davis Fest

Union, NJ, April 27, 2015 (Newswire.com) - Lies I Told My Little Sister, a woman-centric full-length drama-comedy film starring Ellen Foley and featuring soap opera star Alicia Minshew, will screen on May 7th in competition for top prizes at the inaugural Bentonville Film Festival, founded by Geena Davis and sponsored by Walmart (based in Bentonville, Arkansas), Coca-Cola and Lifetime to champion women and diversity in film.

Lies has been an Official Selection of 21 film festivals in the US, Canada and England, and winner of 11 festival awards, including four honors as Best of the Festival, most recently on Rodeo Drive at Lady Filmmakers Film Festival in Beverly Hills. Other wins include Grand Prize from the NJ International Film Festival, Best Family Drama from Manhattan Film Festival, three Best Acting wins, and Audience Award for Best Feature. It also won Best Screenplay for its 61-year-old female screenwriter, Judy White, who will be at the 8pm screening for Q and A.

"Lucy Walters portrays Cory brilliantly, in her first lead role, a beautiful blend of comedy and drama."

Daniel Hoyes, Film Editor, I Am Entertainment Magazine

Loosely inspired by the screenwriter's own family and co-written with her nephew, Lies I Told My Little Sister is about a globe-trotting photographer who gets guilted onto a family trip to Cape Cod with the younger sister she used to torment. Amid grief, recriminations, revelations, a very strange shopkeeper and an old romance, they square off against the patterns of childhood. Though it deals with a death in the family, "there's still comedy," says Judy White, "because life is still funny, even after a terrible loss, if you can just let it."

Starring in an Best Actress award-winning turn as the family's mother is veteran rocker/Broadway/film actress Ellen Foley, who was Meat Loaf’s iconic duet partner on Bat Out of Hell, the fifth best-selling album of all time. A reunion album will be released this fall. The drama-comedy's lead actress is Lucy Walters, who caused a stir with her breakout role in Steve McQueen's Shame opposite Oscar-nominee Michael Fassbender, and now stars as Holly in 50 Cent's hit STARZ drama series, Power. In a featured role is 3-time Emmy nominee and soap opera star Alicia Minshew of All My Children, and, in his first adult lead, Donovan Patton of Blue's Clues has earned a festival Best Actor win.

Reviewers say, "Essential festival viewing. The acting is great, the characters complex, and Lucy Walters is magnetic." The film is "thought to be about lies, yet full of life truths, sprinkled lightly with comedy that carries a ton of life," and "an uplifting tale of perseverance and self-affirmation, entertaining throughout."

Lies is the first feature directed by William J. Stribling, who stepped onto the set the day after graduation from NYU, taking on a female-dominated film because "a character is a character, and made sense to me on an emotional and intellectual level regardless of gender." This attitude is precisely what Geena Davis is hoping to champion at Bentonville.

The Arkansas premiere of Lies I Told My Little Sister is Thursday, May 7, 8pm, at White Auditorium, Burns Hall, NWACC, 1 College Avenue, Bentonville. Tickets are available online at www.bentonvillefilmfestival.com. The film is not yet rated, but contains strong language and adult situations. To see the trailer, visit the film's website at www.liesitoldmylittlesister.com.​

High resolution images are available for download at http://tinyurl.com/litmls-njpress