Giovanna Chesler is a professor at UCSD, where she teaches documentary production, sound design, editing and cinematography. The Museum of Photographic Arts (MoPA) will screen her Beauteous Trilogy in February of 2004

BeauteouS is actually the third part of a trilogy, which is three portraits of myself and my two sisters and our relationships to beauty. This film fictionalizes the experiences of my middle sister, who was the beauty queen, the prom queen, who came out and shocked everybody in terms of what they thought a straight girl was supposed to be and what a lesbian girl is supposed to be.

I started making BeauteouS as a documentary, but it didn’t really work out that well. I thought my sister’s story perfectly lent itself to a comedy, where we see this Long Island prom queen come out and really challenge her identity as a pretty girl. I set it in Long Island because that setting perfectly lends itself to comedy. These people live in malls and speak in this crazy accent — they take themselves a little too seriously, particularly when it comes to [high school] proms. Also, I wanted to work on my Long Island accent, and get all these California actors to speak with a Long Island accent.

I shot the film in San Francisco — it was my thesis film for grad school. I wrote the script in about half an hour when I realized the documentary wasn’t going to work out. Honestly, the film is very true to life — I’m not that creative a person. It’s my sister’s life out there for everyone to see. I shot it over eight days; I started it in September and finished the film in May or June of the following year. I finally released it in September, so it took about a year to make. I say the film cost about $20,000, just to keep my heart from racing. I’m still paying it off in terms of my college loans.

Filmmaking is my life. I teach at UCSD, where I’m working with students who are starting to make films. I’m finishing up a short documentary, I’m in the middle of shooting a feature documentary, and I’m trying to raise money for a feature-length film.

BeauteouS has a lot of energy, and the audience reacts well to it. It has played around the world, which [has been] really exciting. And I love the support that the gay and lesbian film festivals have been giving it. I’d love to keep making films that those audiences want to see.