"Frownland, made on the extremely cheap without the slightest thought for commercial appeal, is the kind of project we tend to describe as 'a labor of love.' The truth is that eking out an exacting vision on your own can feel as much like suffering as fulfillment. Thanks to funding issues, it'd take six long years to finish the movie, with a yearlong break during which Ronald lied his way into a Swedish copywriting job."
"Ronald had emerged from a bad experience at NYU's film school with a stolen flatbed editor and a determination to make a movie on his own. He gathered friends to serve as the cast and crew for what would become a portrait of a compulsively off-putting door-to-door salesman who shared a one-bedroom apartment with a hostile roommate and who was dating an unhappy high-schooler."
Mary and Ronald Bronstein, both from tristate suburbs, met through filmmaking when Mary responded to Ronald's casting call for Frownland, his debut feature film. Ronald had left NYU film school determined to make an independent movie with friends as cast and crew. The film depicts a compulsively off-putting door-to-door salesman navigating difficult relationships. Made on an extremely limited budget with no commercial aspirations, the project became grueling rather than fulfilling. Funding issues extended production to six years, during which Ronald worked a Swedish copywriting job to survive financially. By completion, Ronald and Mary had married. The finished film premiered at a small festival in a residential garage in Williamsburg, with minimal attendance.
#independent-filmmaking #creative-partnership #low-budget-production #film-festival #artistic-struggle
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