Gia is a fictional film.
Fictional film , fiction film or narrative film is a film that tells a fictional or fictionalized story , event or narrative . Gia is a 1998 biographical HBO film about the life and times of one of America 's first supermodels , Gia Marie Carangi . The film stars Angelina Jolie as Gia and Faye Dunaway as Wilhelmina Cooper , with Mercedes Ruehl and Elizabeth Mitchell . Wilhelmina Cooper ( 1 May 1939 -- 1 March 1980 ) was a Dutch model who began with Ford Models and , at the peak of her success , founded her own agency , Wilhelmina Models , in New York City in 1967 .