Located in an original wild west border town, the 2022 Fort Smith International Film Festival, celebrates “Borderlands,” where the stories of our lives exist. Our shared humanity is experienced at the borders between countries, nations, states, cities, neighborhoods, languages, races, genders, cultures, social economic classes, and ages. Borderlands are where innovation happens, realities are challenged, novel concepts and fresh identities are born and questioned. These societal edges represent a coming together of physical and emotional boundaries, the forming of territories, the space where conflicts are both heightened and resolved. Film acts as a threshold between actuality and fantasy capturing the moment a border is established, defended or overcome. For filmmakers, art is our manifest destiny, and the Fort Smith International Film Festival, is the theatrical gateway to creativity’s wild west, where all perspectives and points of view are welcomed.