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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
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