We spoke to Giulia Nasciemento, the director of short queer comedy, Family Dinner.

Giulia was born and raised in São Paulo, Brazil, she has always had a passion for

writing and the arts and she's now studying filmmaking at university. This is her first film,

both as a director and a writer.

​

Watch the full q&a here.

 

Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself and your film, Family Dinner?

I’m currently a film student here in Brazil where I’m speaking to you from. Family Dinner

was actually the first film that I directed and I’m also the screenwriter of it. I hope

everyone is liking it!  Everything that I write and direct is targeted towards kids or

teenagers and I wanted to tell a teenage story. I wanted to tell a story from an LGBT

person, targeted to this audience. 

 

How did you research this project and find your actors?

A lot of the stuff comes from my own experience but also my friends' experiences. I’m part of this LGBTQ club in my college, so we talked a lot about it there too. 

We worked a lot with improv during the casting, so some things you see weren’t actually scripted. It was kind of hard to find the actors because we needed comedy actors. I think we got very lucky, they were great actors and we had such a nice time filming too. 

 

What challenges did you face?

Money! We had a zero budget so what we did was a bunch of bakery stuff. We cooked and baked and sold stuff through college. We had a party to raise funds because we wanted to pay the actors - we weren’t going to hire them and not pay. We didn’t have money to pay for locations so we shot in my old apartment. All the stuff you see on set - we didn’t buy anything. We just borrowed it from a bunch of people! So I think money was the most challenging thing. Also it was my first time directing so I was kind of nervous. 

 

What are you working on now?

Right now I’m currently working on a web series with a couple of my friends. One of the episodes I’m thinking about bringing this [Family Dinner] situation into. My main character is going to be bisexual so I’m thinking about bringing a little of this scene to it. I chose the writing and directing path [at college] so right now that’s what I’m studying. I’m a junior so I’m already almost done with college. All my crew were from my class and it was really nice to work with them. They were amazing people. Most were women and most were queer, so it was really nice. 

I want to be a TV writer. Especially for animation. I’m currently writing a pilot, it hasn’t been picked up by anyone but I’m writing it! I think working with kids is where you can start with representation so I think it’s so important. That’s my dream! 

 

Who is an influential queer character you relate to?

Sara Lance from Legends of Tomorrow. I think she was the first bisexual character that I saw on TV and I started watching this show when I was about 14, I think. It was actually one of the things that helped me come out to my parents. My parents back then thought that bisexuality wasn’t a thing so I made them watch the show with me and they started understanding stuff so it made my coming out story much easier! Her character was very important to me growing up.