I am a writer/producer with an interest in social media, PR and marketing.
I started my career in London in postproduction, then moved to production. Holding both a Swiss and an American passport, I settled in New York in 1993, where I have been working as a producer and writer in TV, fiction films, commercials and corporate films. Details of my professional life can be viewed by scrolling down.
I have many interests. Certainly travelling has been top of my list for a long time: Laos, Mongolia, Costa Rica, China, Cuba, Europe, Syria, Lebanon, Turkey, Russia, etc., and I am hoping to add to the list.
I enjoy literature, Kundera, Marquez, Yourcenar, Rushdie are my modern masters. Cinema, theater, Performa. Nature is a relief from living in a large city: hiking, swimming, paddling. I draw and have started sculpting as a way to fulfill my visual yearnings. I dance and practice yoga to reaffirm my bond to space and spirit. I love music, songs, Latin, African, but as a listener, I can’t play an instrument. I wish.
My husband John Rubino is a writer/director, and 2 children are both attracted to writing.
Currently
Writer
For various publications, including Le Temps, the Geneva newspaper of Le Monde group, check out the Articles page. My blog has been a lot of fun, putting me in touch with people all over the world. I’m working as a writer for PSP, Production Services Portugal, a wonderful, vibrant production company of outstanding women, owned by Patricia Lino.
I have been working on script writing and fiction for many years and hope I have now sharpened my tools. I greatly admired the writer Agota Kristof . She was my mentor as told here, helped me edit Deux Guerriers, the story of two warriors, a European warrior who goes to Jerusalem to fight during the First Crusade and an Arabic warrior who becomes enrolled in a terrorist organization to assassinate a Western leader. Peine perdue is a script which was selected by The Women’s Film Festival of Créteil. A tombeau ouvert was published in a short story compilation. I’m working on a text about madness and creativity, A Handbook of Pantamorphopoetics. And publishing weekly the story of one out of 100 women over 2500 years: The Thread. I’m busy.
Language coach, voice over and translation
Worked as language coach for Ethan Hawke on La Femme du Cinquième, directed by Pawel Pawlikowski. Ethan wears glasses in this film, and manages to look very attractive, with a kind of mad scientific look. I suppose that’s why he’s a star. Have recorded for various companies, including Continental and the City of New York. And translated for PBS documentaries (Harlem in Montmartre, The Music Instinct) film projects, government. I’ve interpreted for BAM, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and Dolce and Gabbana.
I also work with private clients to increase their profile on the web. As they’re private, their names do not appear here.Expanding their web presence has been really intriguing, including blogging and supervising the production of their newsletter, as well as using tools such as AdWord and Google Analytics which are utterly satisfying to the mathematician in me.
Producer at Decoy Films
Worked on For Earth Below, a short film with Bill Sage and Brook Smith. Distribution and marketing of Gibtown, a documentary about circus & sideshow people.Developed films and videos.
Free lance producer
Produced short form films for BMW, HP, Gap. Independent Films:Asbury Park, dance film, short film.
Producer/production manager at Sa Kwa Pictures
Inside the Actors’ Studio, for Bravo. Connections a documentary about preserving the American Landscape.
Before 1993: Free lance assistant editor, sound editor, production manager, post production manager
Assassin of the Tsar (I wish I had convinced them to change the title to Regicide, a closer translation to the Russian and a better title). It was fun and easy working with Malcom McDowell (left), and a thrill with Oleg Yankovski who played in many of Tarkovsky’s films. We spent six weeks at Mosfilm Studio, an unforgettable experience. Somewhere there’s Super 8 footage I shot of a set of Venice under several feet of snow. And Lost in Siberia with English film & TV star Anthony Andrews. After many months of very hard work, executive producer Ben Brahms invited us to accompany the films to Cannes.
Voices in the Garden took me to Paris. I worked with the French postproduction team on this film shot in English. Produced by Gaumont and the BBC, the script was based on the novel by Dirk Bogarde. With Anouk Aimée (left) and Joss Ackland.
Reflecting Skin is a f
eature film which features a very young Viggo Mortensen! It was shot in Canada and postproduced in London. Viggo was charming, professional and had many cultural interests. I understand he’s stayed that way.
And many other films, documentaries and short films for the BBC, Channel 4 and the British Film Institute. Including a documentary about the Directors’ Fortnight shot during the Cannes Film Festival.
I was also translating when working in England for various companies. Always writing and making short, experimental films. Super 8, 16mm and video. It was fun to collaborate with friends who were budding dancers, choreographers, musicians, actors and artists. A teeming world living on pennies in Thatcher’s economically depressed London.
Studies:
I studied film making at the Battersea Institute. The old Steenbecks(featured left), the Bolex, the Chinon, the enjoyment of getting the film back from the lab and projecting it, sweet memories. Discovery of my favorite masters: Visconti, Bergman, Bresson, Fassbinder, Kurosawa, Hou Hsiao Hsien.
Biology at the Université de Lausanne, Switzerland.
Not for the faint of heart. Math with mathematician students, physics with physicists and chemistry, etc. Math was great, geology riveting, and theoretical physics mind blowing. Chemistry I despised as debased cooking, it doesn’t even taste good.
In high school in Lausanne, I studied Ancient Greek and Latin, as well as German. I enjoyed drawing, loved history. I did like math and sports, which was considered really uncool. I discovered 20th century literature and the Italian cinema which we worshipped as well as its muse: Anna Magnani (left).My behavior was rowdy in middle school. I enjoyed playing pranks and was just plain rebellious in the face of anything that didn’t make sense to me or didn’t seem fair. Meanwhile I was making my way through the complete works of Hugo, Balzac, Stendhal, Flaubert, Thomas Mann, Zola, Dostoïevski, and Checkhov.
I loved elementary school. The wonders of Kindergarten are still with me: the scents of the paints and markers, the large tables for art and the closet full of games. My teacher, Mademoiselle Durieux, was all a teacher can be. She cherished me, even after I locked her in the classroom (she had left the keys in the lock) or stuck all the kids’ shoes in a venting pipe (I was annoyed about something).
The previous years’ occupational and educational activities are not on record.