This and all other episodes of the MAKE IT podcast are brought to you in partnership with Women in Film and Television as part of the Voice of the Filmmaker Program.
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In this episode, we have a conversation with filmmaker, actor, and philanthropist Julia Rosengren. We talk about her challenging upbringing in Northern Brazil, traveling the world at seventeen, surviving the modeling industry, climate change, UNIAO GAIA, why she fell in love with trees, her short film, ‘Leaves,’ and what the world gets wrong about money.
About Julia Rosengren
As the middle child of four, she and her siblings grew up living with their parents in poverty in the tiny northern Brazilian town of Timbaúba. When Julia was a young girl, she would walk a couple miles to town each day to pick up the two largest jugs of fresh water that she would carry home, as her loving family’s household had absolutely no electricity or running water. Although times were rough, these very difficult living conditions motivated Julia to desire a better future for herself and family.
As an adult, Julia made her mark in the highly competitive world of modeling, which opened the opportunities to visit numerous different countries across the globe. With each new adventure Julia embarked on, she would immerse herself in the country’s culture, and to date she speaks Portuguese, English, Japanese, Spanish, Italian, French, Russian, and Danish.
Always reinventing and challenging herself, Julia hosted a London talk show and later signed on as a fashion consultant for the iconic French department store chain, Galeries Lafayette. From there, she enrolled in a master chef class and rose to become an in-demand executive chef for her own catering brand called “Julia’s Cuisine Exotique,” located in the Golden Triangle area of Europe.
Despite successes in a broad array of business ventures and explorations, Julia felt like she finally found a home for her soul when she had an opportunity to lean into the world of philanthropy. It was then that she decided to make a direct change in her life by helping to raise money for underprivileged children. Julia's passion willfully took her to the United States, where her love of languages persisted. She enrolled as a student of Russian in the Modern Languages Department at the University of Central Florida, and there, became a part of the academic culture by granting scholarships for deserving students.
Julia and her husband also did a lot of joint philanthropy work at the University, helping to build the locker rooms for the UCF football team, as well as the soccer and volleyball teams. Additionally, Julia also helped a non-profit organization in North East Brazil, where together with her friend, Anderson Ribeirao, have created a project called “United Changing Lives” allowing women the opportunity to learn how to become manicurists in order to provide jobs and help them sustain themselves.
Most recently, Julia has been working on writing and producing films, where she was the producer on Before Sunrise (2020). Julia’s latest work is her screenwriting and starring debut, LEAVES (2021), a mesmerizing environmental-awareness short film that showcases issues with climate change, global warming, wildfires and deforestation. The movie chronicles the story of an academic-minded woman, played by Julia, discovering an epiphanic connection between herself and an ailing massive red oak tree in her backyard.
Threaded through the narrative are ties between the infirm tree, the out-of-control west coast forest fires, and our disappearing rainforests. LEAVES marks the beginning of a creatively fertile and purposeful era for Julia, where her humanitarian interests intersect with her artistic pursuits.
The inspiration behind LEAVES comes from Julia's ability to create projects that send a positive note to the world, and in turn, make a difference. Her goal with the film is to plant an important message to enact social change and responsibility, therefore inspiring and making a difference for our planet’s future.
Apart from Julia's own films, she also oversees more than a dozen major philanthropic projects, one of which is MoviesMakingADifference.org –– a 501c3 that creates feature films that highlight social issues and gives back to the communities profiled.
About the MAKE IT Podcast
The MAKE IT podcast is an audio platform for the Voice of the Filmmaker Program. We offer a variety of educational, aspirational, and entertaining content that promotes the success of creatives across the filmmaking community and the film industry. Our Filmmaker Conversations with industry professionals are dedicated to sharing the advice, knowledge, and insights of experienced filmmakers while exploring what it truly means to be an independent creative in the highly competitive world of filmmaking. Each filmmaker conversation is backed by thoughtful research that allows us to uncover the raw, authentic truths behind each filmmaker's journey. Through our Indie Talks, we share our thoughts and perspectives on navigating independent film from the perspective of Advisory and Executive Producers. We discuss topics that are relevant to filmmakers across a wide spectrum of filmmaking perspectives, and we do our best to uncover hidden truths and new developments in the film industry. Our goal is to help filmmakers avoid the pitfalls and obstacles on the business side of film so that their filmmaking creativity can thrive. Our Industry Insights provide bite-sized actionable advice that filmmaking professionals and creatives of all kinds can use to keep their heads up as they continue their filmmaking journeys. With advice sourced from the filmmaking community, we build upon the wisdom of our filmmaking guests to provide our audience with truly aspirational and inspirational content. The Mistakes in the Making series gives our filmmaking friends an opportunity to speak directly to our filmmaking audience to share a specific lesson they've learned through a mistake they've made. We are firm believers that mistakes can be the gateway to success when we open our hearts and minds to learning from them, sharing them, and using them to Be Better.
This and all other episodes of the MAKE IT podcast are brought to you in partnership with Women in Film and Television as part of the Voice of the Filmmaker Program.
Please help us keep the conversation going.