In the year since locally filmed drama “Money Game” premiered in Greenfield, the vitality of the film’s message has only gotten stronger, members of the cast and crew say.

“Money Game,” a story representative of real-life pandemic-inflicted economic hardship, has been summarized by director and co-writer Julian Lowenthal as “the story of an average American journey in 2021 to succeed.” It follows James, a health care worker and a widower with two young daughters who is trying to save enough money to purchase his late partner’s dream home in Maine. Meanwhile, Bryson, a hot-headed business owner who represents tyranny within a broken economic system, stands in his way.

“The movie was a warning and the fact that we’re living in a time where we see things coming to fruition is scary,” said Naheem Garcia, who played the film’s Professor Gardner, an unorthodox educator who taught James key knowledge about the economy and recession.

The movie was filmed during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic primarily in Turners Falls before enjoying its premiere on June 14, 2024. It has since gone on to win 17 awards across more than a dozen film festivals and currently has a 7.8 out of 10 rating on IMDb after being released on Comcast, Amazon and Tubi earlier this year. Lowenthal has also reported hearing overwhelmingly positive feedback from viewers since the movie was first screened.

Paul Speziale, one of the film’s producers leading its release and campaign, credited the film’s popularity to its “timeless” theme, describing “Money Game” as “a look behind the curtain” at “literally everyone on this planet.”

“I would say that this film is more relevant today than it was during COVID,” he said. “With the way the second Trump administration is running the country, the way that you’ve had those elections in Venezuela, Spain, France and Canada … it’s literally happening in front of us exactly how the movie is saying.”

He reasoned, for instance, that commodities such as gold, cobalt and silver are losing value, but that they can ironically generate some of the most reliable cash flow.

“What makes ‘Money Game’ timeless is the exact message … that none of this makes sense,” Speziale summarized.

He noted that the film’s realistic take on economics paved an unconventional pathway for its success by means of LinkedIn, where economists across the world pooled together to write reviews and continue the conversation. This generated a niche market of people interested in viewing the drama as a real-world motif.

“Played with razor-sharp gravitas, Gardner’s dialogues aren’t lines — they’re manifestos,” Petro Golovko, trust protector at British Gold Trust, wrote in his review. “Gardner’s role is no accident. He embodies the voice of reason in a world deafened by greed.”

“You never know who’s watching,” Lowenthal said.

In terms of overall streaming success, Lowenthal said his team should receive “quarterly reports” indicating statistics, but that reporting has been delayed. He expects the first batch of data to become available this fall.

In the meantime, the goal is to simply “keep pumping this out into the big ether,” Speziale said. The movie is still being promoted vigorously on Instagram and Facebook, with Lowenthal regularly holding free-to-play cash prize trivia raffles to generate interest on the latter.

Meanwhile, Buffalo 8, the film’s distribution partner, is continuously exploring additional streaming platforms. Speziale also teased that the “Money Game” team has filmed longform, podcast-style interviews with some cast members, with intentions to release them by the end of the year.

“Money Game” is available to stream for free on Tubi at tubitv.com/movies/100032559/money-game.