We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Gabriela Lie. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Gabriela Lie below.

Gabriela Lie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

When I lived in Japan, back in 2018, I did my very first short film. It was called The Loners. A love story between a depressive salary man and… death herself! I guess I myself was slowly becoming a salary woman- due to the exhausting work culture in Japan so I wanted to express that in some way. I was living in Japan for one year already and I’ve heard about this Sundance Ignite Program, where they selected short films from all around the world and the winners would get a change to go to Utah and do workshops and have mentorship. You just needed to be 24 years old or less, and guess what? I was 24 already. So time was ticking and I decided I would participate. It was challenging not only because it was my first short film, but in a foreign country, with cultural and language barriers. Eventually we produced and shot the film in the course of seven months. Even though my film was not selected, that program served as a motivation for me to go and produce my film. Through the people that I met on set, so many other great job opportunities came along. Today, I look back at it and I so proud of the whole process and how much I learned not only as a filmmaker but as person. I made so many friends, I learned so much about Japan and consequently about the world. I have Japanese descendant and I consider Japan as my second home, so to do a movie there was like doing a second and tighter knot to our relationship, making it even stronger.

Gabriela Lie, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I did a Bachelor’s Degree in Photography back in Brazil and I after I graduated I moved to Japan, where I did my first short film The Loners(2018) and worked in many creative projects such as the movies Whole(2019), Miss Osaka(2021), Dance of Dead(2022) and the NHK Limited Series Kintsugi Wellness( 2021). In 2023, I moved to Los Angeles where I did a Directing Program at UCLA Extension. Last August I did my second short film called The Dinner Table, a story about a Brazilian family having a symphonic battle through sounds while trying to have a peaceful dinner. I work mainly as a producer, assistant producer, office manager, assistant director and key production assistant.

I have experience both in film set and film office. I like to be active and productive at all times. What I really love is directing and producing, so anything related to that is interesting and captivating for me. I can do most of the things related to producing like budget and schedule sheets, tech scouting, casting, production management, gathering and collaborating with crew. Directing although always challenging, is what really gets me going. I love working with actors, producers, cinematographers. Basically, I love telling stories through moving images.

I guess the most unique feature I bring to the table is my communication abilities and my versatility. I lived in Brazil, my home country, Japan for almost ten years and now the U.S. for almost two years. Living abroad has really helped me understand better human beings and society itself. It gave me broader perspective of life. Everywhere I lived, I tried to learn and incorporate the best part of that society, of that culture in me. I feel like in this entertainment business it is paramount for you to learn how to deal with people of different kinds and tempers, and I know that living abroad has helped me a lot in that matter.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

I feel like just the process of you creating something, out of zero, out of blank, it’s already so gratifying. Sometimes people have this conception of artists being this hippies that have their work easy, but it is so far from the true. To create something, gather the funds, energy, people, material, time and specially the effort of all of those involved to make it happen this idea; that was once just an abstract concept in a paper, to then becoming a reality, it is something extraordinary. I started appreciating much more artists, when I started making films of my own. Of course, it’s definitely not easy, but once you’re caught in the process of creating again, and knowing you won’t settle until you have it finished, it’s what makes it so rewarding.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I definitely want to see more latin females directors in the spotlight in the upcoming years! There are so many great female directors lately that are bringing amazing stories to the big screen and that makes me hopeful for the future. It’s definitely a fresh movement that the industry needed and slowly things are changing, but I still feel like the latin voices are very underrepresented, simply because there are very few voices behind the cameras to tell them. I hope one day, I can a be, amongst many others that will come, a good representation of a latin director, to tell the many stories about our beautiful continent and culture.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://imdb.me/gabrielalie
• Instagram: gabizauum
• Youtube: https://youtu.be/Lk_zR4Wl6Oc

Image Credits

BTS The Dinner Table: Geovana Pimentel

The Loners Poster: Usman Kawazoe

The Dinner Table Poster: Gabriela Lie