I was very aware of size from an early age. Growing up, I was taller than the other girls, which meant I was automatically called “big”. I wasn’t naturally thin like everyone else seemed to be. On top of that, I lived with a diet obsessed father, a mother that was constantly counting her Weight Watcher points, and an older brother who also went up and down the scale.

In my father’s eyes, your size determined your role in society: skinny and thin meant that success was in your future; overweight meant you were doomed. 

In my late twenties, I tried to resolve this ideology by becoming a competitive bodybuilder. What began as a mission to lose weight turned into discovering an inner athlete I never knew existed. I became addicted to working out and the compliments that came with the results. This journey came with rigid training routines and extreme diets. It was the first time in my life that I pursued physical “perfection.”

I learned what warrior mentality was: fight through anything. Fight through the workout, fight through the hunger—no matter what. Bodybuilding is a sport focused on your body, not your performance; the constant mirror checks, weigh-ins, and self-scrutiny quickly became an obsession. After three competitions, I was burnt out and walked away from it all.

Julienne is my artistic response to these experiences. I didn’t want to simply recreate my own story, but instead translate it into something universal—something anyone could relate to. I wanted to portray the obsession that comes with dieting and the things we tell ourselves to keep going.

Director’s Statement