
Frownland was made with very little money and wasn’t intended to be a mainstream hit – it was a passion project. But pursuing a demanding creative vision on your own can be as difficult as it is rewarding. Because of financial struggles, the film took six years to complete, with a year-long pause where Ronald pretended to be a copywriter in Sweden, essentially assembling a portfolio from online sources when money was tight. By the time Frownland was finished, Ronald and Mary had fallen in love, gotten married, and people had mostly stopped asking about the movie, treating it like a sensitive subject. Not knowing what to do with it, Ronald submitted the film to a small festival in Williamsburg, where it played to almost no one in a residential garage.