Five Raindance Revelations with Bryce Hirschberg for ‘Jackalope’

For many filmmakers, getting a film into Raindance is a career milestone. For Bryce Hirschberg, it’s something closer to a full-circle moment.

More than two decades ago, a teenage Hirschberg found himself wandering the streets of London during a family holiday, fascinated by advertisements for Raindance and intrigued by a film called Oldboy. That brief encounter left an impression that would stay with him for years. Now, with his latest feature Jackalope making its World Premiere at the festival, he’s finally stepping onto the stage he first dreamed about as a 13-year-old horror fan.

Written, directed, produced, edited and starring Hirschberg himself, Jackalope is a tightly wound psychological horror-thriller that proves big ideas don’t require blockbuster budgets. Set during a seemingly quiet countryside getaway between two brothers, the film gradually transforms into a deadly game of manipulation, suspicion and survival when a mysterious woman enters their lives. What begins as an awkward interruption soon spirals into something far more sinister, forcing its characters to question not only each other, but their own identities.

It’s a project that perfectly reflects Hirschberg’s filmmaking philosophy. From childhood homemade movies with friends to his award-winning debut feature Counterfeiters, he’s built a career around telling character-driven stories through sheer determination, creativity and resourcefulness.

Ahead of Jackalope‘s World Premiere at Raindance, we caught up with Bryce Hirschberg for the latest edition of Five Raindance Revelations to discuss lifelong friendships, cinematic inspirations, and why sometimes the biggest lessons from filmmaking happen far away from the camera.

Bryce Hirschberg writer-director and star of ‘Jackalope’

1. Tell us about your film and why you felt Raindance would be a great place to unleash it on London and the UK.

I’m going to do my best to paint a picture for you! It all started in 2003. I was 13 years old and my family and I were on our way back to LA from a Euro Cruise. It was my first time in Europe. We decided to stay a day in London on our way back. It was a lovely city that I couldn’t appreciate at my age, and haven’t been back to since. I had been obsessed with movies for years, all sorts, but especially horror/thrillers. One of the first movies I’d ever seen was Misery (thanks, Mom), and to this day remains one of my favorite films of all time, but I digress. Walking the streets of London, one thing stuck with me, more than Big Ben or Buckingham Palace, or the Tower of London tour we took. It was the advertising for Raindance and a marquee advertising Oldboy. I remember watching Oldboy later that year (too young to be watching,  but here we are). It was so incredible and from that moment on, I knew that I wanted to be a part of THAT Festival.

2. What moment made you realise you wanted to create films, not just watch them?

This is a great question in which I have two parts. I’ve always been a HAM. I get it from my dad, Jim, who isn’t featured in this movie, other than a scene you see briefly playing in the background on the living room TV, which I had to include. (It was my last film, and I put him in that one. I needed him to make a little cameo in the one by any means. I knew he would appreciate it.) When I met my oldest friend, David Klassen, approximately 1996, we began writing and making short films from then through high school. I would write the story, act, and tell my friends who played roles in the shorts what to do. David would film everything on his camera. Fast forward many years, and we’re still doing the same thing. David was the cinematographer on Jackalope and my last film, as well as a producer along with me, where I’m still writing and acting and telling my friends what to do, which we found out was called “directing.” Haha – The second part to this answer is, when applying to college I found out there was such a thing as a “film school” and that you could major in such a program. That’s the moment I realized that I wanted to do this as a profession.

3. What’s one film that fundamentally changed the way you think about cinema?

WOW. So many films come to mind for so many different reasons: Catch Me If You Can, The Prestige, Scream, the list goes on and spans genres. BUT I do have a somewhat “artsy” answer to this. In my first year of uni, at Loyola Marymount, I began watching foreign films for the first time, and I watched a French-language film called Un Prophete, a film about a kid sent to prison and him rising the ranks of the gang system inside. It was so gritty, so intense, so raw. It wasn’t polished; it was handheld, and in your face, and it was the first time I saw a movie that was so contained and character-focused. It really gave me hope as a filmmaker that everything didn’t need to be multi-million-dollar blockbusters. I saw that movie and thought, “ I want to write something like that, something I can make one day.” – The “self contained,” “character driven,” low budget script that become films like, Jackalope, which (off the record & just between us, was done on a budget of just 55k)… shhh I hope to sell it for more haha.

4. If you could collaborate with anyone in film history, who would unlock the most exciting project for you?

The master of suspense, Alfred Hitchcock. His classics live on, untouched, rarely attempted to be re-created or adapted. While at Loyola Marymount University, my senior thesis film called Counterfeiters (which later was adapted into my first feature), drew lots of inspiration from his lesser-known films, in particular, Rope. I wanted to stand out, do something unique, so I decided for my grand finale of college, I wanted to attempt to do film in one continuous take, spanning multiple locations. Rope, being the first to do a version of that, led me down a Hitchcock path where I became obsessed with his storytelling.

5. What’s something making this film revealed about yourself that you didn’t know before?

Oh boy do I have a lot of answers to this question, but let me talk about what stands out to me the most, and not very “movie related” per se. It was my first time raising money for a movie, all be it not that much, I had to put my “business owner” hat on for the first time, create an LLC, make a bank account, sign contracts, things I was never comfortable doing before and I didn’t know if I would struggle doing. I was so proud of myself as far as my organization, accounting, and business acumen I’ve always wanted to have but never thought I did. I know that job isn’t finished yet either and I’m still learning the process of making movies beyond the actually making of the movie.

It’s clear that Hirschberg has never really stopped being the enthusiastic movie-obsessed kid making films with his friends. The difference now is that those childhood experiments have evolved into award-winning features, festival premieres and increasingly ambitious productions.

What stands out most is how much of Jackalope appears rooted in collaboration and persistence. The same friend who held the camera for those early homemade shorts now serves as his cinematographer and producing partner. The same passion that led him to discover film school has carried him through the realities of independent filmmaking, from writing and directing to fundraising and managing the business side of production.

His admiration for filmmakers such as Alfred Hitchcock and Jacques Audiard is evident, but so too is his commitment to forging his own path. Working with a reported budget of just $55,000, Jackalope embodies the kind of inventive, character-focused independent cinema that festivals like Raindance continue to champion.

As Jackalope makes its World Premiere tonight, Hirschberg returns to the festival that first captured his imagination all those years ago. For a filmmaker who grew up dreaming about Raindance while walking through London as a teenager, that’s a story ending that feels almost cinematic in itself.

Jackalope trailer