Initiation
Directed by Julian Graciano Nunez
United States · 2026 · 11 min · Experimental
Submitted to RTV International Film Festival 2026Synopsis
INITIATION is an experimental autobiographical short film that revisits a young actor’s arrival in New York and his formative relationship with acting teacher and mentor Sondra Lee. Moving through fragmented memories, tarot symbolism, surreal imagery, and the city itself, the film looks back at the ambition, innocence, and sometimes foolish certainty of youth. More than twenty-five years later, those experiences reveal themselves as something larger: an initiation into art, mentorship, loss, and the lifelong process of becoming an artist.
Credits
Directed by Julian Graciano Nunez
About the film
INITIATION is an experimental autobiographical short film that looks back on the experience of arriving in New York as a young actor, certain of where life and art were going to lead. At the center of that journey is my longtime teacher and mentor, Sondra Lee, whose influence would ultimately extend far beyond acting training. Moving between personal memory, New York City, tarot symbolism, archival imagery, and surrealist visual language, the film reconstructs that period not as a conventional narrative but as a series of fragments—moments whose meaning has changed with time. Influenced in part by Alejandro Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain, INITIATION explores the strange mixture of ambition, innocence, ego, discovery, and foolishness that accompanies becoming an artist. More than twenty-five years later, and following Sondra’s death in 2026, those experiences take on another meaning. What once seemed simply like the pursuit of an acting career can now be understood as an initiation: into art, into mentorship, into loss, and ultimately into the ongoing process of becoming oneself.
Director(s)
Julian Graciano Núñez is a Mexican American writer, actor, filmmaker, and creative director based in Dallas, Texas. After moving to New York City in 1999 to pursue acting, he became a longtime student of acting teacher and mentor Sondra Lee. His creative work explores memory, identity, spirituality, mentorship, and the ways our understanding of the past changes over time. INITIATION, his experimental autobiographical short film, revisits his early years in New York and reflects on youthful ambition, artistic discovery, and the experiences that shape a life in the arts.
Film stills
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RTV International Film Festival — Inaugural Online Edition · 2026