Ponti gained invaluable experience working as Michelangelo Antonioni's personal assistant during the development stage of a project from September '97 to March '98. He subsequently produced, wrote and directed his first short entitled Liv, executive produced by Robert Altman, Antonioni and Carlo Ponti and presented at the 1998 Venice International Film Festival.

World-renowned Polish composer, Zbigniew Preisner, composed the score.

Ponti collaborated with Preisner again when he wrote and directed the stage production of Preisner's musical memorial, Requiem for my Friend. After the show premiered in October, 1998 at the National Theatre in Warsaw, Poland, Warner Bros. awarded Ponti with a platinum record in November, 1998 in recognition of his stage adaptation of the music. In addition to composing the score for Between Strangers, Preisner and Ponti will collaborate again on a new live musical scheduled to premiere in Petra, Jordan in the spring of 2002.

Ponti began his career in theatre in 1995, producing and directing the Eugene Ionesco play, The Lesson at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, which also played in Boston. In 1996, he produced, directed and adapted for the stage Nick Bantock's best-selling epistolary trilogy Griffin & Sabine, performed at the Spoleto Theatre Festival in Italy.

Born in Geneva, Switzerland on January 6th, 1973, Ponti, who is fluent in French, Italian and English, graduated Magna Cum Laude in 1994 from the University of Southern California with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature and Creative Writing. In 1997, he went on to earn a Master of Fine Arts in Film Directing and Production from USC's School of Cinema and Television.

Ponti divides his time between Los Angeles, Geneva and Paris.

Credit: we.tv