VIDEO EXCLUSIVE: Julia Fox & Luis De Filippis On Trans Visibility In Film ‘Something You Said Last Night’

In their new uInterview, Julia Fox and Luis de Filippis spoke about their new film Something You Said Last Night, which focuses on a trans woman and her family relations.

The movie is based on the director de Filippis’ short film Nonna Anna. Nonna Anna is a story that focuses on “a trans woman and her relationship with her Italian grandmother.”

The two women are “going through mirrored experiences” with “the grandmother is coming into a place where she’s losing her sense of self” and “her granddaughter is finally starting to like see what she likes in the mirror,” said de Filippis. 

The focus of both of these movies is “a story about a trans woman that wasn’t about transition, that wasn’t about the mechanics of transitioning, it wasn’t about the trauma it’s really about like her relationship with a family member.”

Something You Said tells the story of a trans woman who is on vacation with her family. De Filippis noted how this film is not about her trauma or coming out.

“We’re really starting with acceptance and kind of going into like the nitty-gritty of what it is to be a millennial kind of moving through this world as someone who is trans, but like not all her problems in the film are because she’s trans,” she said.

Fox, who was the executive producer of the film, remembers the moment she fell in love with the movie.

“I was on a set in the middle of glam to walk on a runway,” she recalled. “And I was just like, ‘Everyone shut up.’ I was like so into the movie and it just really drew me in and you know it’s one of those movies that just like touches your heart in a way.” 

Fox mentioned how she loved how the film came full circle by the end of it.

“We open and [the main character] is just so shut off and disconnected and she’s rejecting her mother’s love and then at the end of the film we see, this kind of olive branch she kind of lets her mother take her by the hand,” she said. 

Fox also agreed with de Filippis about how movies about trans people typically focus on their struggles, calling it “trauma porn” and “exploitive.”

“We need more stories like this that show trans people in their families, in their day-to-day like just about love and family and how that kind of transcends everything,” she said.  

De Filippis pointed out how these films are not only exploitative but personally, she finds them “boring” calling them “they’re just like so been there done.” She spoke about how cinema can reflect people’s aspirations, “and if you don’t have those like reflections like reflected back at you then you could have a hard time kind of like self-actualizing who you want to be.”

Carmen Madonia, who plays the main character Ren, made her acting debut in the film. De Filippis recalled how she knew that Madonia was perfect for the role after seeing her audition.

“She really understood the power of silence,” she said. “I think it comes across in her performance from start to finish just like this sense of knowing herself and this unshakeable idea of who she is and what she wants in life.” 

De Filippis shared that her goal for the audience is to “come away feeling a little bit sun-kissed and a little bit like they’ve been on vacation for a week with their family.”

Additionally, after viewing the film, she wants, “the feeling that permeates is that, ‘I have to call my mom.’” 

Fox, on the other hand, explained that she hopes this film will “answer some questions” for the people who are leading the anti-trans movements, specifically in the U.S. She wanted them to be able to relate to the character and that this could be the start for them to “bridge that gap.”