Thursday, March 28, 2024
38.0°F

FLIC announces 2022 awards

| February 17, 2022 12:00 AM

The 2022 Flathead Lake International Cinemafest (FLIC) wrapped Jan. 30, followed by encore screenings through Feb. 3 in Polson. Now in its 10th year, FLIC has become a destination film festival for filmmakers from across the globe. This year’s film entries, including narrative shorts and features, documentaries and animated films, hailed from 18 countries.

The documentary film “Open Field,” which profiled elite women’s professional league football, (see the Daily Inter Lake’s feature article and interview with the film’s main subject, quarterback Sami Grisafe and the film’s producer and director Kathy Kuras, online at https://dailyinterlake.com/news/2022/jan/20/love-game/ ) was a huge hit with the FLIC audience, winning Best Documentary Feature and the Audience Award. Both Grisafe and Kuras were in attendance for the film’s Montana premier.

“Open Field” is the hard-hitting, goosebump-inducing story of women’s tackle football starring Grisafe, the starting QB for the Chicago Force women’s tackle football team from 2007 to 2014 — winning the national championship in 2013 — and led Team USA, the U.S. Women’s National team, to three Gold Medal wins in the International Federation of American Football (I.F.A.F.) Women’s World Championship where she was awarded MVP twice.

In addition to being the lead subject featured in the film, Grisafe wrote and performed the film’s driving score. During the film, Grisafe, now a successful musician/singer/songwriter based in Los Angeles, playing a ukulele, sings the National Anthem before a big game. FLIC producer David W. King asked Grisafe if she’d like to sing the National Anthem

to kick off the live FLIC Awards Show. Grisafe said she would if

King could find a ukulele … which he did. Grisafe’s rendition of the National Anthem at the Awards show was one of the weekend’s powerful highlights.

On Sunday, film producer Gerald R. Molen participated in a Q&A following a special screening of his 1992 blockbuster film “Jurassic Park.” Molen’s son Steven Molen (a lifelong film production veteran himself) also participated in the discussion. The careers of these two Hollywood luminaries include working on over 150 films for such pictures as “Schindler’s List,” “Days of Thunder,” the first two Jurassic Park films, “Men in Black” and many others.

FLIC 2022 award recipients

Best Animation — “On/Off”

Best Cinematography — David Darg, “The Angler”

Best Documentary Short — “Mission Mountain”

Best Picture Short — “Feeling Through”

Best Actress — Sam Bilinkas, “Ranch Water”

Best Actor — Dustin Gooch, “Landlocked”

Best Director — Doug Roland, “Feeling Through”

Best Montana Film — “Mission Mountain”

Best Documentary Feature — “Open Field”

Audience Award — “Open Field”

Impact Award — Greater Polson Community Foundation