Sundance diaries: How Erica Tremblay markets her Lily Gladstone movie - Los Angeles Times
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How Erica Tremblay markets her movie without ‘Killers of the Flower Moon’ money

An illustration of a woman with flowers on her shoulder
Self-portrait of filmmaker Erica Tremblay in embroidery thread, acrylic paint and an old T-shirt.
(Erica Tremblay)
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As part of our yearlong series on Sundance filmmakers, The Independents, we asked participants to keep a diary of one day in their working life and submit an accompanying self-portrait. Today’s diary is from Erica Tremblay, who reflects on what she’d do with even a fraction of “Killers of the Flower Moon’s” marketing budget for her “Fancy Dance,” which like Martin Scorsese’s film stars Lily Gladstone.

Read yesterday’s diary: How filmmaker Kristen Lovell solves the ‘puzzle’ of pre-production

12:30 p.m. — Wake Up

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It’s only 9:30 a.m. in L.A. so the day is just getting started.

12:31 p.m. — Check Instagram

Oh s—, yeah. “Fancy Dance” won two more festival awards. I really wish we had a marketing budget, but sharing these accolades on my poorly designed Instagram stories will have to do.

12:35 p.m. — Switch Apps

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I add the new wins to the festival spreadsheet that I share with my producers and sales agents. Since premiering at Sundance, we are up to 18 festival awards. That means juries and audiences like the film, right?

12:45 p.m. — Check Email

Blah, blah, blah. Archive, archive, archive. Oh, this one is interesting: A studio wants to show “Fancy Dance” for Native American Heritage Month. They are sad to say they can’t buy the film, but they would love to sponsor a screening for their employees in November.

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F—. Are these gatekeepers going to trap “Fancy Dance” inside the month of November, only to trot it out every Thanksgiving to absolve the industry’s century-long legacy of redface and Native erasure?

If months were geography, November would be the reservation. Thirty square days contained by a fence of diversity panels and a $500 stipend. It does say free lunch though, so maybe...

1:30 p.m.Eat Breakfast

I don’t like to cook, so I mostly eat the same things every day. It makes grocery shopping easier and it takes the labor out of having to decide. Today and every day, I eat a peanut butter and chocolate Zone bar for breakfast.

To commemorate next year’s 40th edition of the Sundance Film Festival, we’re spending 12 months looking at the lives of 7 members of this year’s class.

Aug. 9, 2023

1:45 p.m. — Write with Miciana Alise

Miciana and I co-wrote “Fancy Dance” and are now working on a sexy thriller feature. Think “Single White Female” but with a Native protagonist whose life and identity gets co-opted by a white co-worker. Miciana and I meet on Zoom to break the film’s set piece at the top of the third act. What’s the best descriptor for a bone breaking? “Snap” or “crack”? We’ve been waiting to get to the fun stuff.

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After the session, Miciana asks, “Are there any updates on selling ‘Fancy Dance’?” No, there are not.

3 p.m. — Check the Mail

I open the box and cycle through the envelopes. I wonder if I’ll ever get to make another movie if “Fancy Dance” doesn’t sell. Maybe we’d get more traction if we had a real poster that actually showed Lily Gladstone’s face.

I text Ryan Redcorn, an Osage artist I worked with on “Reservation Dogs”: “Do you have five minutes to chat?”

3:20 p.m. — Call with Ryan Redcorn

I’m making my bed when Ryan calls. We have a quick chat about Martin Scorsese’s “Killers of the Flower Moon,” which is opening this weekend. I ask him if he can help me put together a poster for “Fancy Dance” with all of our festival laurels. He tells me a story about designing posters for bands at the House of Blues and agrees to help.

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4 p.m. — Admin Work

I gather all of our laurels and organize everything into a folder on my desktop.

I Google the “Killers of the Flower Moon” poster to confirm that Lily Gladstone’s face is very present next to Leo’s. I wonder how much Apple is spending to market this $200 million movie.

What is a half of a percentage point of $200 million? If someone valued “Fancy Dance” at even a half of a percentage point, we could probably get our film out there.

5:30 p.m. — Eat Lunch

I have an egg salad sandwich. The family group chat pings. It’s my 10-year-old niece sending a poem she has written to her mother, her siblings and me. It reads,

As she picks the growing flower

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She stops the cycle

Of herself, and everything

Around her

I cry. How can a child write something so beautifully accurate? I text the poem to my friend and favorite poet, Tommy Pico. He responds, “She’s been here before. I feel like this is my first go round, but this baby isn’t new.” I cry again.

The filmmaker has capitalized on several opportunities created by Sundance, first after short ‘Little Chief’ and now after feature ‘Fancy Dance.’

July 27, 2023

6:07 p.m. — Check More Emails

Dang, I’m gonna be late.

7 p.m. — Family Time

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I meet my sister and nieces at the movie theater to watch Taylor Swift’s “Eras Tour” movie on the big screen. The 13-year-old is all decked out in plastic bracelets and a Sharpie-drawn fan T-shirt.

As Taylor comes onto the screen, my niece weeps. It’s a deep and guttural type of crying that surprises me and also moves me to tears. The beauty of a teenage girl feeling free and safe to have and express emotions is a striking sight to behold.

11 p.m. — Language Studies

I ate popcorn at the theater, so I can skip dinner tonight and go straight to studying. I’ve been learning my Indigenous language, Cayuga, for five years. It’s taken me nearly a month to work my way through an old text of my tribe’s creation story. Tonight, Sky Woman is giving birth to her daughter and to civilization.

Midnight to 4 a.m. — Write More

Here, in the early a.m., is where I do my best work. I reserve this time for whatever I’m currently finding the most inspiring, or whatever is on deadline. Tonight, I am doing scene work on a grounded horror feature. It takes the creation story I’ve been studying and grounds it in a modern setting. What if Sky Woman returns and is unhappy with how we’ve treated her creation?

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5 a.m. — Time for Bed

I’m really tired now. I turn the lights off and pick a random movie to fall asleep to. The opening credits of “Legends of the Fall” starts to play.

I wonder how big their marketing budget was?

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