Four years after her first film was selected for SXSW, Nicole Riegel follows up with her sophomore release, Dandelion.

For female filmmakers, advancing to make the sophomore film is easier said than done. In Amy Adrion’s 2018 documentary, Half the Picture, it was said that 84% of female filmmakers would become one-time filmmakers for one reason or another. I’m not going to get into that list right now. Anyway, Riegel is now getting the hard part out of the way of releasing a second film but it took relocating from Los Angeles to make it happen. But in making the second film happen, the native Ohioan gets an opportunity to work with a pair of Ohio natives–the Dessner brothers, Bryce and Aaron.

Dandelion (KiKi Layne) is a struggling Cincinnati singer-songwriter in a downward spiral. After she makes a last-ditch-effort to get a gig at a motorcycle rally in South Dakota, she meets Casey (Thomas Doherty). Casey is a guitarist but is many years removed from his dreams. He brings her into his fold of nomadic struggling musicians. They make music together as they get to know each other, even striking up a romance. This newfound perspective leads Dandelion to have a different view of what defines success as she goes along her own artistic journey.

Following its SXSW premiere and festival run, IFC Films releases Dandelion exclusively in theaters on July 12, 2024.

It’s so nice to see you again.
Nicole Riegel: It is so nice to see you again. Danielle. I am such a fan of yours.

Thank you. It’s nice to know that those still exist.
Nicole Riegel: Yes. I am a fan of yours and when I saw your name on the long press sheet, I was so excited.

How did you come upon the decision to write and direct a film about your own filmmaking experiences but through the lens of a musician rather than filmmaker?
Nicole Riegel: Well, when you and I first met, I was writing Dandelion. I was in a very rough place behind the scenes and I just felt so invisible as a woman in the directing chair. My head was so wrapped up in the numbers of just how many women even get to make a film and even more, don’t ever make it to a second film. When you get there, then you’re sort of in the 1%, if you can even get to a second film. Most women, it takes 8-10 years to get to that second one and I couldn’t wait that long.

I was just writing it and pouring out my feelings and just feeling like I was in this rut and writing Dandelion made me fall in love with movies again. I was living in Los Angeles when I met you and I’ve since moved to Nashville. I’m a filmmaker living in a music city now and music made me fall back in love with movies. When I wrote Dandelion, what I realized was, wow, I love the process, but I am in a headspace and living in a place that’s so consumed and obsessed with results and competition, and I need to get away from that. This is a movie about process versus results and at least that’s the lesson I learned.

What was the most challenging aspect of the production?
Nicole Riegel: Oh, my goodness. I would say casting because the casting on this was more challenging than Holler because Dandelion and Casey had to check a lot of boxes, meaning they had to be able to sing. They didn’t have to be able to be amazing guitar players, but they needed to learn chords.

They needed to be able to put themselves through learning the guitar and that can’t happen in a week. They needed to adopt my filmmaking style, meaning I’m going to take you to remote places. You’re not going to get a lot of time. I might see a prairie dog park on the side of the road and make you pop out and we’re going to do a scene and I don’t have any script, and you’re going to have to go do it. I embrace improvisation. You’re going to have to do live performances and pre-records. It required a lot. You’re going to have to be vulnerable with your bodies. The sex scenes. It was so much—these really were demanding roles when you look at what these actors had to be able to do.

Oh, and work with non-professional actors. You’re not going to be around a bunch of other actors. I’m going to take real people to play themselves and throw you in scenes with them. That’s a long list of things and so it was really hard to find people who could do all of that. I would find people who could do two of those things or I would find people who could sing and could nail the guitar but I was like, you aren’t going to want to work the way that I do. I can’t take you to the Badlands—you’ll be miserable. They’re demanding roles, for sure.

I picked up my first guitar in 8th grade and I still have not mastered guitar to where I can play it without looking at the fake book, without looking at the chords.
Nicole Riegel: Oh, my goodness. At the first part of that sentence, I was like, oh, wow, is Danielle about to tell me maybe I should have auditioned Danielle. We would have had a very different Dandelion story. It would have been equally wonderful, but different.

Yeah, but that I wouldn’t have been able to attend the premiere in Austin because of all the attacks on trans rights.
Nicole Riegel: Um, if you were Dandelion and that’s what was happening and I was your director, let’s just say you and I would have been together that day in solidarity.

Did you do any particular research while you were writing the film?
Nicole Riegel: Yeah, I hung out with musicians. The band’s a real band. I feel like their big sister. I’m working here with Bryce and Aaron Dessner at the height of their careers, and then here I am meeting this band at an opposite place. I spend a lot of my days with musicians and guitar is a big part of my life and music. I grew up listening to my CDs, listening to Michelle Branch, listening to Alanis Morissette, Liz Phair, and Tracy Chapman, and now Joy Oladokun. Phoebe Bridgers. If you watch both my films, I’m obviously obsessed with Phoebe Bridgers. She has such a presence in my films.

But, yeah, I already knew music. I didn’t have to do a lot of research in that way for this, but I did bring the stories of musicians into the film. The band and Aaron and Bryce, a lot of things I learned from them are in the film like the line Brady says about music as a way of living. I didn’t write that. That can only come from a guy who’s been in a band for many years and has struggled since they were teenagers to make it. I could never write that line.

Did you give the Dessner brothers any sort of direction about what you were looking for in terms of the music?
Nicole Riegel: Oh, yeah, for sure. I mean, we already like the same kind of music. They’re my favorite musicians in the world so I joke with people that I sort of got to be like that little boy in Almost Famous who tags along and sees his music idols, except mine weren’t disappointing—they’re wonderful human beings (Laughs)

I didn’t go tour with them or anything, not even close to that. But, yeah, I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t a dream come true. To grow up listening to these guys play music and then to actually bring their love of music into my love of filmmaking and collaborate. I gave them emotional direction with the songs. I want the songs to feel this way, that was written into the script. I sent some song samples, but a lot of it was their own music.

The plan was, first of all, for me to not contribute to the music and then I wrote lyrics and things that we needed to hit for the narrative to hang together. One day, Aaron said, I think you’re going to be writing a lot of these songs with us. I would text him lyrics. He would edit mine, I’d go edit his. They would come back to me with a completed song with a demo or then another demo of it. Our collaboration happened so naturally and it was my favorite part of making this movie.

How honored were you to premiere the film at SXSW and actually get to attend the premiere at SXSW?
Nicole Riegel: You understand this so well. It was amazing. It was emotional. It was very emotional. I got to see my dear friend Iram, who had a film, I’ll Meet You There, that was supposed to be 2020 and has a new film out that’s wonderful. And yeah, just to be in person and to be around other—I’m a director’s director, so just to be around all the other directors and to get to be there, I enjoyed and loved every second of my South by Southwest experience. The dream finally came true to be there in person. I did mourn Holler a bit. The night before the festival opened, I walked to the theater where Holler would have premiered and the place where we were going to have our after party. I called people I worked with on it and was like, Look where I am. So I did. It was bittersweet.

It was so great getting to catch up and I’m sure I’ll talk to you on the next one.
Nicole Riegel: I’m sure we will.

IFC Films releases Dandelion in theaters on July 12, 2024.

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