Biography:
Julia L. Rosengren is a trailblazer and a fearless entrepreneurial creative.
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.
Official Website: www.juliarosengren.com
Ig: @julialrosengren
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.
Watch the Trailer!
https://juliarosengren.com/projects/leaves/
Mini Biography of the Company: ManoelFerreira Productions, LLC Born during the early ravages of the Covid 19 pandemic with the ambitious idea of making films to send a positive message to the world. Films and special projects already accomplished are: ‘BEFORE SUNRISE‘, an award winning short film, shot in Texas on an iPhone but directed remotely from Brazil, ‘UNIAO GAIA’ a viral music video with contributions from people all over the world, and now LEAVES, the new short film to be released soon. MFP, was created by myself and my husband James Rosengren, in honor of my beloved father, MANOEL FERREIRA. Growing up, he believed so much in me and my dreams when, as a family, we had so little and even less opportunity. Sadly, he is no longer with us, but left behind a beautiful love for the planet, as you see on the logo of MFP. I hope our work can be a positive contribution to the world while also honoring his life and memory. For future projects, some are already in the early writing stages and MFP is always open for positive ideas that send a message.
- First of all, it's a pleasure talking to you!
Let's talk about your most recent work “LEAVES”. How did the idea for this project come about?
I have always felt a great closeness with nature and trees in particular. From when I was very small I would hug them, I still do, and it always makes me feel a great sense of peace and communication. I have always had this recurring image in my mind of a woman, maybe it was always me, maybe it was someone else, but it was of this woman becoming one with a tree. That was really where it all began.
- How was the relationship with your team?
Well, firstly I took the idea to my friend Paul Davis, who is a writer-director that I had worked with before, and I asked him what the image suggested to him. He had some ideas and then I had some more ideas and before we knew it we had a script and we were shooting in East Texas where we hired a very small local crew. It all came together very quickly.
- Tell us about the origin of the production company (Manoel Ferreira Productions, LLC), what vision and goals does the company have for the future? I come from a very small town in Brazil and we were very poor when I was growing up. Even so, my father always encouraged me to live my dreams. His name was Manoel Ferreira, so I named the company in his honor. Unfortunately, he passed away before seeing it come to be but I know he would share our vision of leaving the planet in a better place after we are gone. That was something very close to his heart and is now both our visión and our goal.
- What can you tell the future viewers, who are reading us, about the film? What things do you want the film to generate in them? Ideally, I would like the film to make them think. It is an environmental film, I suppose, but it doesn’t seek to preach and I don’t pretend to have all the answers. Who does? But I hope it will make people consider that we are part of nature and our environment, not ‘apart’ from it. To me, that carries great responsibilities.
- Tell us about the preparation processes of the film. What were the most complex or difficult things you had to solve during filming (technically and/or emotionally)?
There is something I have learned about making films. It is that you are never really dealing with just one film. In fact, there are three. The first is the one you conceive of and write. The next is the one you film and the third is the one you edit in post-production. They are all the same and yet they are all different because the process is always evolving.
For example, on Leaves, the most difficult part was that we knew there would be a certain amount of special effects (SFX) that were critical to the film. So although of course, those elements are there on the page in some form, they are not present when you film, which makes it quite a challenge and demands a lot of preparation to allow for them. This is what I meant by the ‘three films’ you make. The circumstances you face when you actually shoot, be it weather, exterior lighting, or whatever, can necessitate quite a lot of changes to different scenes in the film.
On Leaves, the SFX was quite demanding and took a very long time as we had such a small post-production crew. Most films go through some versión of this. There is a lot of back and forth as some things in the process work well and others do not and have to be changed. That time on Leaves was certainly quite demanding emotionally but well worth it in the end.
For more Julia L. Rosengren´s projects visit the Official Website: www.juliarosengren.com Ig: @julialrosengren – Thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak with you!
We will be attentive to your next works!
Madrid Film Awards I Press Team