I was bitten by the film bug at 17 when I got my first acting job. My career took off very quickly with a supporting role in HBO’s 2001 production Deadly Voyage. I also won ‘Best Actress’ in Ghana in the same year.
I became a lecturer and the director of the Higher Institute of Multimedia Arts at the University of Manouba once I had gained my PHD in computer science. This gave me the opportunity to rub shoulders with audiovisual professionals as students or visiting professors.
I have a real patchwork vita but it has always been about media. I studied visual communications at college and my first experience with scouting was 18 years ago when I worked as a production assistant for a commercial production company. We had a big shoot for a Burger King spot coming up. The client wanted to shoot a Motorcycle Chapter Clubhouse full of bikers. I thought "this is exciting, I can do this".
I have been the CEO of the Union des Producteurs de Cinema (UPC) since 2007. Before that I was General Counsel of the French Union of Phonographic Producers, which is the French member of the IFPI.
I have been involved in the film business from a very young age. I was an actress in the Miami area during my pre-teens but then decided I preferred to be behind the camera. Luckily a producer by the name of Rob Cohen took me under his wing and during summers and holidays I was a PA of sorts and absorbed the business from behind the scenes.
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I was born and raised in the Chicago area and went to Purdue University in Indiana. My early goal was to write for Sports Illustrated but I found myself more interested in electronic media than print media so I followed more of a production route.
I started as a runner on the American TV show Xena: Warrior Princess, which was being filmed in New Zealand in the mid 1990s, so I have worked my way up the ladder from the bottom. I have worked as a 1st or 2nd AD on over 25 dramas such as The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, Yogi Bear, The Shannara Chronicles and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon: Sword of Destiny.