Audience Awards: platform for interaction between independent filmmakers and viewers.
The human condition comprised of all its glorious struggle, bliss, growth and destruction, is undertaken in Daniel Molloy’s Closed Door Open. It’s an engaging topic, one that we experience on a minute-to-minute basis. The beauty of Molloy’s film is the opportunity it provides for the audience to engage and interact with its themes and characters who ponder the unknown, their reality, their identity and the effects of change. This is a film to be psychologically and philosophically contemplated. It brings up real-life questions that you are naturally compelled to consider in your own life. Closed Door Open is centered around actors who are in rehearsal and with their running personal accounts, you feel like you are participating with them in their creative process. Molloy’s interactive film is reminiscent of the collaboration between filmmakers and viewers that the Audience Awards community stimulates, which is why I have spoken with the filmmaker to find out what his experience has been so far with Audience Awards.
Upon entering the Audience Awards, Molloy was excited to see how his film exploded in just the first three days. The Cat vs. Griz competition has helped gain his film exposure and as Molloy comments, “It is a great avenue for us filmmakers, student filmmakers and all filmmakers. It doesn’t matter, we’re all film makers. What I like about the Audience Awards is that it gives us the opportunity to get all our work shown, and to be Montana-centric is kind of fun.” Molloy got his undergrad in Film at Montana State University and recently completed his MFA at The University of Montana. At first he was a little hesitant to join a competition whose name renders football chants and debauchery, but he was happy to find that it was a merely an extension of the competitive history between the universities and did not have to do with football. “There is a lot of talent in both of these schools and it’s great to get students’ films out there. And if Montana wants to make a forefront in the film industry we need the social networking that Audience Awards provides.” With films like 2013’s Winter in the Blood, festivals like The Big Sky Documentary Film Festival and creative communities like our own Audience Awards, Montana is making a name for itself in the industry.
There are only a few days left of the Cat Griz competition so make sure to watch Dan Molloy’s thought provoking film, Closed Door Open and vote for your favorite films on the competition’s homepage.
