In his over 50 years in the business, 81-year-old Hollywood icon Al Pacino has won multiple awards for his performances, including two Emmys and an Oscar. However, the star of the Godfather saga has also done a lot of work behind the scenes, beginning in 1990, when he produced his first film, The Local Stigmatic. In 1996, he made his directorial debut with Looking for Richard and went on to helm 2000’s Chinese Coffee, 2011’s Wild Salomé, and 2013’s Salomé. Al shares his eldest daughter Julie Pacino with acting teacher Jan Tarrant, who he dated for a year in the late '80s. And the 31-year-old has been following in her father's footsteps—not as a performer but as a filmmaker. Over the past 11 years, Julie has not only made her own films professionally, she’s also received awards for her work. To see what Al Pacino's daughter is doing now and to hear more about her relationship with her dad, read on.
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Julie knew at a young age that she wanted to be a filmmaker.
Araya Diaz/Getty Images for Unofficially Unlimited, LLCAs a child, Julie was already passionate about filmmaking. During a 2014 interview with her alma mater, The New York Film Academy (NYFA), she noted that she used to make short films with her friends and write stories for them to act out. And with an A-list actor as her dad, the aspiring filmmaker had the opportunity to visit a few sets. On these sets, she became “incredibly intrigued” by the “alternate reality” that she was seeing.
“I liked being sucked into a story, falling in love with the different characters and ultimately learning something about my own desires and myself,” she explained. “I feel very fortunate that I knew from an early age that I wanted to work in the film business.”
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Julie made her first professional short film when she was 20.
Amanda Edwards/Getty ImagesJulie’s first film short, Abracadabra, which she wrote and directed, was released in 2009. She produced her first feature film in 2013 with Billy Bates, a drama about a struggling artist’s obsession with a singer. But Julie has chosen, as a director and producer, to focus primarily on shorts, both narrative and documentary.
Over the past two years, she’s won a handful of filmmaking awards, including Best Director (Female) for her short, Nowhere to Go at the 2020 Venice Short Film Awards. Also last year, Hard Work won the Best Comedy award at the Hollywood Gold Awards, a film festival in Los Angeles. Julie shared this win with writer Max Meisel.
She has co-founded two production companies.
Walter McBride/Getty ImagesJulie started her first production company, Poverty Row Entertainment, in 2009, with her friend Jennifer DeLia. The pair collaborated on Abracadabra, which DeLia produced and acted in. While the company has worked on some commercials and music videos, the collaborators enjoy making short films more, per NYFA.
For Julie in particular, making short films has been a pivotal part of her career. “They are a great way to experience the whole process of making a movie on a smaller scale,” she explained to The Toronto Film Magazine in 2020. “They can also be more challenging than a feature-length version because you have such little time to tell a complete story. I’ll definitely keep making them.”
Julie still works on other projects, as well. In February 2020, she announced the development of her first TV series, Harmony in Gold, based on her short of the same name, in conjunction with the founding of her second production company, Tiny Apples. The company’s goal, according to a press release, is “to push the boundaries of conventional storytelling by creating imaginative content while tapping into the best and brightest of both coasts.”
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Her father has given her a few tips about the film industry.
SGranitz/WireImageUnsurprisingly, Julie has turned to her dad for advice about the entertainment industry. And she’s continued to carry his wise words with her.
“The night before I started [film] school, I told him how excited I was,” she told Page Six in 2014. “He said, ‘Always remember the feeling and to hold onto the passion because at some point you may feel jaded and don’t remember why you got into this business in the first place.’ That’s the best advice I’ve received from him, and I apply it to my life every day.”
Al puts his family first.
Kevork Djansezian/Getty ImagesJulie has two half-siblings, twins Anton Pacino (left) and Olivia Pacino (middle left), who are 20 years old. Their mom is actor Beverly D’Angelo, who Al dated from 1997 to 2003. As a father of three, Al says he not only changed because of his kids, but that he’s also constantly focused on them.
“Before I had my three, I’d walk around in my own head, not noticing anything,” he told The Guardian in 2015. “Acting used to be everything; now, because of them, it’s just a small part.”
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