JULIE SCHULDT
A Northern-California RAISED writer/director creating emotional-surrealist films
USC School of Cinematic Arts MFA in Film & TV Production.
Director of four indepenDENTLY self-produced feature length films.
Short film premierING at
the OSCAR® & BAFTA qualifying
LA Shorts INTERNATIONAL FILM Festival.
Short film premierING at the Oscar & BAFTA qualifying LA Shorts INTERNATIONAL FILM Festival.
The Unschooled Storyteller
Raised unschooled, Julie grew-up in an environment that fostered imagination, critical thinking, and freedom of expression. Without the constraints of traditional curricula, she spent her youth obsessively creating stories.
As a child to her tween years, Julie always had a camera in her hand. From her first short films, music videos made spontaneously at the park, writing a feature script at 12, and a Sketch Comedy Series she rallied her friends into, Julie was constantly creating.
The Imaginists
At 9 years old, she joined The Imaginists, an artist-run non-profit theater company that fostered experimental, explorative, ensemble-based creativity.
From adaptations of poems and ancient myths, to original devised work (like the political satire HOME SCHOOL MUSICAL), to Shakespeare and Chekhov, this early immersion in boundary-pushing performance art defined her trajectory for emotionally-surrealist storytelling.
The 15-Year-Old Director
Julie directed her first feature film at age 15, the psychological thriller INSENSATE.
The odd film, a mediation of isolation and loneliness told by a child via the mouth-puppets of adult actors, was made by an experimental approach of an unfolding series of improvs, with Julie being the only person on set who knew where the story was headed.
INSENSATE achieved international release, with one Letterboxd review even saying they're, "too dumb to understand the deeper meaning." Making this movie ignited a terrible fire in Julie to dedicate her life to filmmaking.
Julie directed her first feature film at age 15, the psychological thriller INSENSATE.
The odd film, a mediation of isolation and loneliness told by a child via the mouth-puppets of adult actors, was made by an experimental approach of an unfolding series of improvs, with Julie being the only person on set who knew where the story was headed.
INSENSATE achieved international release, with one Letterboxd review even saying they're, "too dumb to understand the deeper meaning." Making this movie ignited a terrible fire in Julie to dedicate her life to filmmaking.
The Self-Taught Filmmaking Education
2nd Feature Film at age 18:
The Boundaries of Improv
Her 2nd feature, IN MY CARDS, took the approach of INSENSATE, except with an attempt at a more traditional story structure utlizing the same real time improv discovery.
3rd Feature Film at age 21:
The Foray Into Scripted
Her 3rd feature, YOUNG HARPER, was a feature script written just to say she could. In the end, she had a film she loved, and the lesson that'd she made it for all the wrong reasons.
Between films, Julie earned her B.A. in Theatre Arts at UC San Diego, graduating with highest honors in directing and a playwriting award for her full-length, fully staged production of her play WHERE I WROTE YOUR NAME.
The 2020 Journey Into The Woods
In 2020, Julie and a group of filmmakers held up at an empty camp ground in the redwood forest for 3 weeks and made Julie's 4th feature film, SOMETIMES I DREAM OF WANDERING.
The surrealist film, about estranged childhood best friends on a quest accompanied by The Antichrist to save the Earth from dying, was Julie realizing there were no rules to play by.
During this time, Julie worked as in-house content creator and manager at the now billion-dollar brand K18 and AQUIS Hair.
The mentorship and entrepreneurial lessons learned there under the brilliant BRITTA COX, helped spark the courage in Julie to go onto her next phase....
USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS MFA
After a year of staring into her greatest creation that still did not work, Julie had reached the end of what she could teach herself -- which was access to her own voice.
Armed with that, Julie and a list of things wrong with her work went to USC School of Cinematic Arts. She learned, in incredible depth from incredible teachers with incredible peers, how the F&%^ you're supposed to make a movie.
The Nestling Messengers
Her first-year short initially baffled faculty with its concept—a non-dialogue film about bird-people in an nest in a void—but against all reason, they conceded, it worked.
Julie was awarded an Annenberg Fellowship at USC for her standout production leadership, where she mentored for a year under GAIL KATZ.
The Things I Leave Behind
After an emotional pitch, Julie was selected by a group of USC faulty and peers to direct her semi-autobiographical film THE THINGS I LEAVE BEHIND.
THE THINGS I LEAVE BEHIND, a short film about a daughter and mother fleeing their home from a wildfire, was Julie's most ambitiously scaled project to date. Over a 100 people in total were involved in making this film.
This was the peaking of everything Julie had learned, both in accessing her voice and wielding the craft of cinema.
Premiere:
August 8th, 2026 at the OSCAR® & BAFTA QUALIFYING
LA Shorts International Film Festival.