INDIE SPOTLIGHT: Interview with ‘Alone in Venice’ Filmmaker Jules East

ALONE IN VENICE is a modern reversal of the Thomas Mann novel, DEATH IN VENICE, in which a young actor is waiting for his married director while questioning what love is. It tells the story about a young and beautiful American aspiring actor, Saul Larson, waiting for his married Chinese female director in Venice, Italy. The actor was fervently in love with the director, while she was giving him excuses after excuses, having him wait alone in Venice. Finally, when the flood season comes, Saul receives a text message from the director. Will they finally meet in Venice? And what will come out of their meeting? This film is made on purpose to be the reversal of DEATH IN VENICE, exploring the theme of forbidden love. In ALONE IN VENICE, we present to you the perspective and life of “the other man” and the complexity of falling in love with a married woman.

Last year I had the pleasure of speaking with Jules East, a rising independent Chinese filmmaker, about her unlikely filmmaking journey to making her first two feature films, and how being diligent, a risk taker, asking for help, and being scrappy can get you pretty far in the low-budget indie world. Her journey is quite inspirational – you just never know when that creative spark will strike – for her, it was when she was bedridden while dealing with somatic pain. But she found a way to take the creative bull by the horns and pave her own way. Jules’ second feature, Alone in Venice, which was acquired by Freestyle Digital Media, is set to release on VOD on January 7.

This interview has been edited for content and clarity.

Sadie Dean: I'm really excited to talk about your filmmaking journey and making these two feature films.

Jules East: Thank you so much. I'm in Silicon Valley – so I'm not an LA Hollywood person. Basically, I was on some tech job, and then one day, I was struck by an illness for an unknown reason. I got a pain from the middle of my head to the toe, and they couldn't find what was wrong. I was bedridden because of the pain. So, when I was sick, with this weird pain, I had a dream of a movie from the beginning to the end. And then I was like, ‘Hey, that will make a good movie.’ [laughs] So when I woke up, although I was still in pain, I tried to learn how to write a screenplay and finished it. And then I submitted to some big contest in Hollywood, it was a sci-fi and I won a prize, and it got optioned by some production company. And that's how it all started.

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Sadie: Wow. How much has your tech background influenced how you approach your filmmaking? Or are they two separate worlds?

Jules: It's actually kind of two separate worlds. Filmmaking has become a hobby. [laughs] I found that the pain was a form of somatic pain. Something happened to me, and I suppressed it for too long – so I made the River of Ghosts, my first thriller based on the somatic pain.

Sadie: Rather than waiting for Hollywood for financing and attachments, and without any formal training, how did you learn to make your own films?

Jules: After the script got optioned and because I'm here and not in LA, there are many more independent filmmakers, I wrote a lot of low cost scripts for them because they needed to be low cost. When I went to set and watched how my script unfolded on set, that's how I started to learn how to do all the technical things like the cameras, the lighting, and the location permitting – all the ins and outs of making a film. And then I was like, 'I can do it myself.' [laughs]

Sadie: What was the process like in making your first film River of Ghosts?

Jules: We were thinking of making something very cheap for practice, because your first film is going be practice – so I was thinking of something cheap - and I was thinking of a five-person web of karma. And at the end, they strangle each other by the river. So, it started off with just a simple idea. And as I wrote it, it became more and more and more, and then I touched the topic of somatic symptom. All the ghosts that I portray and create in River of Ghosts, they are not real. They are like, your mind made them up, like a real hallucination that makes it look like a real haunting.

So, after I finished the script, I finished it really fast, less than one month, and then someone picked it up and said, ‘You can actually make this because this is a thriller and it's cheap.’ And then I tried to organize it into less than two weeks, a 13-day shoot. And then I finished it in 13 days, and after editing and everything, I was taking a look and it's not too bad. [laughs] I finished the whole feature film. So, I was thinking, maybe I should submit to some film festivals. And finally, I got three legit distributors saying they would distribute this film. So I was like, ‘Well, that's not too bad!’ [laughs]

Sadie: Going from that film into your second film, Alone in Venice, what learning experiences did you take from the first film to the second?

Jules: The second one was only $20k. I learned I already know how to cut corners. I had a 15-person crew become five. it happened in Venice, Italy when me and my friend were in Italy on vacation, we observed a lot of rich Chinese, because I'm also Chinese, rich Chinese women who are married, but keep lovers in Venice. So we were like, 'Wow, this is real! This is not fiction.' [laughs] We were thinking maybe we should make something like this but with a twist. 

We think that Death in Venice is one of the best films ever made in Venice. It's talking about a director in love with a young boy. And he couldn't tell him and then he died. So, we were thinking about we reverse this and make the young boy in love with the director but the director couldn't love him back. And then I wrote the script, all shot in Venice, made in 13 days.

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And then a lot of people said, 'Jules, you're so crazy. Venice is very expensive! The permit is extreme. You cannot do that for $20k.' When I had this somatic pain, I was in this international support group and I got to know a policeman from Venezia, Italy. So that guy helped me to get a free permit. Then later I found that actually I can get a lot of grants because I'm a minority and a female director. So I applied to some grants.

Sadie: Do you have a writing process?

Jules: I admire good writers, I think they are geniuses. For me, I feel you have to write something that can be made. And people have really interesting stories, but it will take $120 million to make that. And then you don't have the connections, it can be so hard. So, for me, I'm putting all the points together and then create something interesting. I like to go not linear, and I like to keep the truth til the end. 

Alone in Venice sets its Digital Debut for North American VOD Platforms and DVD on January 7, 2025.