Meet JVG
Julio Vincent Gambuto is an author and moviemaker.
Julio is the author of the new book, Please Unsubscribe, Thanks! — now available from Avid Reader Press at Simon & Schuster, chosen to be the Barnes & Noble "Pick of the Month" for August 2024. Oliver Burkeman, modern sage and NYT-bestselling author, called it "simultaneously hilarious and deadly serious." Julio was nominated for an Audie Award from the Audio Publishers Association for voicing the audiobook. The book is a follow-up to Julio's viral essay “Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting,” which sparked a worldwide conversation reaching more than 21 million readers in 98 countries. Julio remains a weekly contributor to Medium.
From the time he was a super gay teen back in the 90s, “Giulio” has had over 30 jobs, including being a singing-and-dancing waiter at Johnny Rockets and welcoming customers at Abercrombie & Fitch (well before the greeters were half naked).
Deeply changed by the experience of the Covid pandemic, Julio has embraced a much more authentic outspokenness. He gets out of bed every day determined to make smart, funny, bold work that's full of heart. His creative projects seek to offer readers and viewers humor, insight, guidance, and a pathway to legit connection in a fucked-up modern world.
A moviemaker by trade and training, Julio has written, directed, and produced film and television content for The New Yorker, Nickelodeon, PBS, E! Entertainment, Samuel Goldwyn Films, Beta Films, Stone & Company, and Kerner Entertainment. Along the way, he has honed his comedic storytelling voice at the mic, performing standup comedy at New York's Gotham Comedy Club, Caroline's on Broadway, Broadway Comedy Club, and at the Comedy Store and ACME Comedy Theater in Los Angeles.
His debut feature, Team Marco, premiered at the Mill Valley Film Festival, where it took home “Best Feature” and the Audience Award in the Family category. The movie was distributed by Samuel Goldwyn Films, and in over 20 countries by Beta Films. A family film, the movie addresses themes of technology, intergenerational friendship, and joy and play. It was praised by critics as “a life-affirming feel-good movie” (Leonard Maltin), and the New York Times commended the director's “golden view” of his hometown. Julio served as EP, co-writer and director.
His second feature project is in the works. Silver Fox is a no-holds-barred comedy that pokes fun—a lot of it—at the confusion of the modern world, as three generations of gay men confront their views about sex, sexuality, queerness, fluidity, race, and woke culture. The short film version premiered at Out on Film in Atlanta, the nation's only Oscar-qualifying LGBTQ+ film festival. It was a co-production with The New Yorker, starring Dan Butler, Alec Mapa, and Julio as Joe Fox.
Prior, Julio served as writer and producer for the Nickelodeon series, Paradise Run, penning its pilot and 40 episodes.
And early in his career, JVG co-founded TAYPE — an after-school arts program for LGBTQ+ teens, which served vital and important institutions like Harvey Milk High School and the Ali Forney Center, for over ten years. The program was funded, in part, by the Time Warner Foundation.
Julio grew up in a large Italian family in the boroughs of NYC, where aunts, uncles, and cousins gathered often around Mom's seafoam-green formica kitchen table for “cake and coffee” — always an Entenmann’s crumb cake — to tell stories, argue about the Mets, and play cards with the neighbors.
He is a graduate of Harvard University and earned his MFA from the USC School of Cinematic Arts, where he was an Annenberg Fellow.
Julio Vincent Gambuto lives in New York City with his fiancé.
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For more information, email Julie Stevenson at Massie & McQuilkin for speaking inquiries or David Kass at Simon & Schuster for press inquiries.
