Victor Nuñez

Victor Nuñez (born 1945) is a film director, professor at the Florida State University College of Motion Picture, Television and Recording Arts, and a founding member of the Independent Feature Project. He is best known for directing Ulee's Gold, a critically acclaimed movie starring Jessica Biel and Peter Fonda. Nuñez was inducted into the Florida Artists Hall of Fame in 2008.

Education and early career

Nuñez grew up in Peru and Tallahassee, Florida. He received his undergraduate degree from Antioch College and an MFA in film directing from the UCLA Film School. He spent the beginning of his career directing low-budget, non-"Hollywood" projects. In the 1970s he made three fictional shorts, "Taking Care of Mother Baldwin" (1970), "Charly Benson's Return to the Sea" (1972), and "A Circle in the Fire" (1974).

Gal Young Un

Nuñez made his feature debut in 1979 with the film Gal Young 'Un which premiered at the 1979 New York Film Festival. Gal Young 'Un centers on a spinster woman who lives alone in the woods of north Florida until she is swept off her feet by an opportunistic bootlegger. He marries her for her place and her daddy's money and her cooking and cleaning, which she freely shares. Inevitably, he shows his true colors in a variety of ways. One day he brings home a very young woman with clear intentions of keeping her as a mistress (a gal young 'un) in the older woman's house. Business takes him elsewhere and the two woman are left alone in the woods together to come to terms with their shared exploitedness.