Sundance Diary: 'Bunnylovr' Producer Roger Mancusi
Highlights from a whirlwind weekend on The Mountain.
by Roger Mancusi
In January of last year, I received an Instagram DM from Rachel Sennott, who I had worked with on Emma Seligman’s Shiva Baby, asking if I’d be interested in reading Bunnylovr, a script from her friend Katarina Zhu. I loved it, we three zoomed, and they asked me to officially come on as a producer. From there, we brought on Neon Heart, also from our Shiva Baby days, and then added Ani Schroeter, and we careened towards our loudly stated summer shoot window. We cobbled together just enough money to film in August, delivered a rough cut to Sundance in October, got in, and then had to finish the film in time to premiere in January. It was a photo finish but we made it, delivering the file to Sundance the week before the festival began.
Truth be told, I had planned on taking more detailed notes during the festival, and even brought my brother’s fancy camera to snap pics along the way for this diary. But then things picked up steam and the temperature plummeted, so taking off my gloves in between events to jot down little tidbits got harder, so we are going to have to settle for this hazy recollection of how my long weekend at Sundance went.
Thursday January 21st
I fly to Utah from Chicago, which is where my wife is from. We were there to drop off our four-month old son with her parents. Admittedly, on the flight there I’m nervous about how things will go. But I’m trying to enjoy the privilege of being in the festival and not attach too high of stakes to the sales experience. As Dear Producer’s Rebecca Green points out, statistically it’s easier to get into Harvard than Sundance, so I attempt to keep a sense of zen about the whole process, and anything beyond the acceptance will be icing on the cake.
I land in Utah to a text asking if I’ve seen my mother-in-law’s car keys, which I quickly locate in my jacket pocket. I had borrowed the family car the night before to ease my mind at a one-man double-feature of Baby Girl and Anora, the two films I felt peer pressured to have an opinion on at the festival. I now need to find a FedEx.
It was -20 degrees in Chicago, so Salt Lake City feels balmy by comparison. My Uber driver, who has her trembling chihuahua in the front seat, is gracious as we realize the FedEx I direct us to turns out to be an enormous airport FedEx that only accepts freight and not individual packages from would-be-key-theives like me. She is equally gracious about adding another stop in the city on the way up to “the mountain.” (Sundance rule: You can refer to it as “the mountain” in no more than one email or phone call, and after that, have a good look in the mirror.)
When the Uber finally arrives at our condo, I lug my bags up to the third floor of our walk up complex, but the fresh air feels good despite the light altitude headache, and there are already a few of our crew in the house. It’s great seeing people I haven’t seen since the last day of filming, where we all spilled into the summer night with champagne, beers, and flowers for an impromptu wrap party in the street. True story: disgraced New York City Mayor Eric Adams called the police on us after getting a tip from one of his goons that lives on the same Brooklyn street. The cops were nice, and we enjoyed our open containers with the promise to leave soon.
On Thursday night, the festival hosts a filmmakers welcome party, so Katarina, Ani, and I head to the Audible Lounge, where I bump into my friend and Sundance darling Lio Mehiel, who has had three projects there in three years, starting with Mutt in 2022, which he won best actor for and I line-produced. That film, which is a soft-spoken trans day-in-the-life movie, now feels more like a loud middle finger to the fascist bootlickers that are looking to erase trans narratives from society. We leave the party and grab a drink with the producers of Sorry, Baby (which will go on to sell to A24) and opt to call it a night instead of waiting in a long frigid line for the By Design after party.
Friday, January 22nd
Friday is the beginning of our press tour and we’re coincidentally working with the publicity agency where I got my first industry job. I tag along to spend time with my old PR friends and catch a few of Katarina’s panels. I bump into some LA agents I rarely get to see in New York and they invite me to a party at their house that night. From the corner of this overcrowded LA-centric house party, I send our afterparty invite for the following night and get immediately bombarded with RSVPs from names I’ve never seen before in my life. A little later, an agent’s assistant drunkenly tells me he loved our movie, which premieres tomorrow and which he shouldn’t have seen already. The day before, someone from a different agency texted a friend that texted me that they had seen it too. I’m pretty pissed, but I’m told that is somehow the norm. I thankfully start to lose my voice after the millionth hour of schoomzing, and I head back to the condo as snow starts to come down.
Saturday January 23rd
Saturday is premiere day, and it’s also now fully blizzarding, which is picturesque but adds a logistical curveball on a day where we need to move a lot of people around to a lot of different places in a very short amount of time. One year, it was so snowy that the dispatchers refused to send the drivers we had hired out onto the icy roads, so I, the assistant, was given the keys to the rental car and had to pick up Peter Dinklage to get him to his interviews. Needless to say, the experience was harrowing for both of us. But we got there in one piece.
Before heading to Main Street, I check the RSVP inbox and see we are now about 300 people over capacity. Among dozens of others, I have to politely decline an agent’s RSVP to their stressed out assistant, who has been following up to their follow-ups every hour on the hour. The assistant then responds to my note asking for a +1, which I am told is a "priority." I close my laptop and head to town.
In my PR days, I remember Sundance having really great gifting suites, essentially brands that would partner with outlets to give celebrities their products in the hopes of a high profile social media shout out or paparazzi photo. Us assistants would steal jackets, boots, ski goggles, American Airlines Platinum Status, etc., or anything else we could get our hands on. This year, it’s way more low key, especially with the backdrop of the LA fires. It’s clear that people are pulling back and opting for a more low key presence, and rightfully so. That, and I’m sure someone realized who was really going home with all that product they put a ton of marketing money into.
After the series of interviews and panels, we head home to change and meet back up at the Library Theater for the premiere. While we’re trying to get everyone from our enormous film team to fit on the red carpet, we’re told there are about 250 people on the stand-by line outside hoping to get in. Before the doors open, we head inside for a tech check, and thankfully the DCP we sent the week before looks and sounds great. Everything moves very fast at this point, so before we know it, people are pouring into the theater, the house fills, Katarina goes up for her intro remarks, and the lights dim. It’s a very surreal experience watching a film you know frame-by-frame play on a big screen with an audience for the first time. We had been painstakingly going over each decision at a breakneck pace, and now it’s finally time to let the movie out in the world. You take a deep breath, blink, and the movie is over, but certain moments will stick out in your memory, like beats that get big laughs in sections you never found funny, or the utter quiet during the film’s tensest moment.
When we arrived at the afterparty, the line outside the venue had already descended into a mob. The lackluster security guards are doing their best to keep people back, but truly do not seem bothered by the chaos. I pull the film team through, and look out to see a lot of friendly faces and some very hostile ones. A woman I’ve never met before yells at me that she paid for the movie and should be let in. Seeing as she did not in fact pay for the film, she doesn’t get in. Someone else tries this trick too, which in hindsight does seem like something a scared person running the door would fall for.
We get the team in and as many buyers, press, and friends as we can, before the security arbitrarily cuts the door list off and yells at the mob to disperse. Seeing as it’s frigid and late, most of them do. From there, it’s actually a fun party, and I finally get to have a celebratory drink late in the night, right before the lights come on and the party is over. At the afterparty, I see 4:00 AM on the clock for the first time in years, and realize it’s time to head home.
Sunday January 24th
I lay in bed and spend more time refreshing twitter and Letterboxd than I care to admit. It’s compulsive and unhealthy, but I can’t help myself. We’ve been so close to the movie for so long and I want to know what people think. Some people love it and some people didn’t get it, and that’s OK. People across the board thankfully can notice Katarina’s talent and are universally impressed by the world she built and her ability to carry the movie on her shoulders. I roll out of bed and go to the Producers Brunch where David Hinojosa gives an amazing speech on the importance of what we producers do, giving me some hope for the industry and our role within it.
I head to No Name Saloon, potentially my favorite bar in the world, to meet a group of friends and watch NFL playoff games. We’re all in various states of disarray, and I cancel the rest of my meetings to stay there for the remainder of the afternoon, before going home to rest up for our evening screening. This screening’s panel is at around 11:30pm and the team musters the strength for a great conversation. We consider going out afterwards but opt for heading back to our condo, and I make ramen like we’re in a college dorm room. The quiet evening we share back at the condo is probably my favorite moment of the entire festival.
Monday January 25th
It’s my last day, so I stack the last few meetings that were getting kicked around the weekend, muster the strength for one more drink at No Name and then pack my bags.
On the flight home, I’m a bit delirious, very tired, slightly sick, but happy and appreciative of the experience that just flew by. I am not 100% sure I kept the zen I was hoping to maintain, but I think it’s perfectly OK to be nervous, excited, and proud of something you’ve created with a small group of friends and a tiny budget. The film is still seeking a distributor, which was expected heading into the festival, and I’m hopeful and confident the film will find the right home.
I wish there was any way to slow down time to really make the most of the festival, but that is simply not how it goes, or at least not how it went for me. I was able to meet all the people I wanted to, agents and financiers for other projects, fellow producers and the community Sundance fosters around the films in the program, but that requires a constant state of inertia and not a lot of down time to let the experience sink in. Maybe accepting that is part of the zen I was hoping to find, which is probably the closest thing to an epiphany I’ll take away from my time on The Mountain.
Quick hitter bits of advice for first timers at the festival:
Two drink maximum, especially on the first day. Make sure you’re drinking water and after your second coffee, switch to tea to save your voice.
Get at least one ticket or confirmed RSVP to an event per day, and then follow your nose and allow for some spontaneity.
Prioritize house parties over events at corporate lounges.
Talk to strangers. You never know who you’ll meet on a bus or in line for a drink. It’s also great for eavesdropping or hearing word of mouth reactions.
Invest in waterproof boots and a good parka. You’ll always see some poor soul from LA in drenched Vans.
Stay an extra day to see movies at your own pace, and don’t schedule anything for this day.
Don’t book the connecting red-eye home despite how much you’ll save.
Roger Mancusi is a producer and industry consultant, whose credits before Bunnylovr include Hannah Ha Ha (Producer, Slamdance Grand Jury Prize winner) and Mutt (Line Producer, Sundance Acting Award winner). Follow him on instagram at instagram.com/rogermancusi.
Listings
Neuman, a new short film written and directed by Tim Elledge and executive produced by Max Gardner of A+M Creative, is running a crowdfunding campaign for the film through Saturday, February 22nd until 11:30PM PST. Neuman is a dark comedy love story, set in the world of recovery, and follows Aoife, a veteran of the community as she grapples with her feelings as she becomes romantically entangled with a newcomer who’s gone missing on the eve of his 1st sobriety anniversary. The film completed principle production and is seeking additional funds for post-production. Check out the campaign on Seed&Spark — and if interested, the film is looking for additional executive producers for higher dollar amounts: https://seedandspark.com/fund/neuman#story”
Eli Barry is looking for work. Eli is a media production pro specializing in visual media and content, including work at Marvel Entertainment. He has produced award-winning short films, music videos, and commercial content. Email me@elijahbarry.com.
The Emerging Filmmakers Program is looking for female-identifying, early-career filmmakers based in Washington State. Program includes training, mentorship, paid apprenticeship, creative development, and $10K in funding for a short film.
Aaron Schoonover is a Casting Director available for your short or indie feature. Able to cast remotely out of various hubs. Flex rate sliding scale for all budgets. Experience casting on studio projects and super indie projects! Email schoonovercasting@gmail.com.
Applications are open for the Jerome NYC Film Production Grant. Deadline is April 3. Supports NYC-based early career filmmakers working in short or long form, experimental, narrative, animation, doc, or any combination of genres. Up to $30K available.
No Film School recently published a massive list of winter film grants, labs, and fellowships. Check it out here.
If you would like to list in a future issue, either A) post in the Nothing Bogus chat thread, or B) email nothingbogus1@gmail.com with the subject “Listing.” (It’s FREE!) Include your email and all relevant details (price, dates, etc.).
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