Today we’d like to introduce you to Tiziana Giammarino.
Tiziana, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I’m a Swiss screenwriter and producer. I was born in a small town in Switzerland. Since I wanted to earn money fast, I started working as a sales account manager right after school until I moved to the United States in 2009. When I arrived in Los Angeles, I took English classes to get to a level of English where I could be accepted in colleges, and ultimately I was admitted to the University of California Santa Barbara. I graduated with a degree in Psychology and also did Film Studies with a focus on screenwriting.
I quickly learned that in Hollywood, you have to make things happen for yourself, so as soon as I finished college I wrote and produced my first short film. At the end of that first production, I told myself “never again,” but I broke that promise basically right away and haven’t stopped writing and producing. One project always leads to another one, meeting the right people and the not-so-right people along the way.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
The road definitely has not been smooth. Especially when you are a foreigner in a country I think you always have that extra rough patch to go through, but I feel that it is almost necessary in order to become the person you are supposed to be. A big obstacle was that I didn’t speak or write English very well when I arrived here, so going back to college and finishing all the assignments was extremely challenging. I had to spend so much time going over and over the assigned reading that it often felt like I would never succeed.
Making myself understood was another big challenge. Some might find a French accent sexy or sophisticated, but in my case it just seemed to bring so much difficulty in making myself understood. Sometimes, I thought I was pronouncing a word the right way, but the sound coming out of my mouth totally changed the meaning of the word, so there were some pretty funny but uncomfortable situations. I also worry sometimes that my accent and imperfect English might make people hesitate to trust me with projects, but again, then you meet the right people and you move forward.
That said, and if I’m being honest, my biggest struggle is that I didn’t trust myself, I always thought that I wasn’t good enough, smart enough to get where I wanted to be. I’m doing better now, but it’s still something that I need to work on every day.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I specialize in writing feature screenplays here in the U.S. and also for production companies in Switzerland. I also produce short films on the side. I actually fell in love with short films when I was younger watching silent movies from the 1910s and ’20s. Since 2015, I have produced several short films here in Los Angeles and in Switzerland as well. I was lucky enough to have the wonderful actress Jessica Parker-Kennedy and Richard Burgi attached to two of them. Jessica starred in my latest live-action film called Split Second, directed by Julianne Donelle, and Richard Burgi worked on my first animated short film, Zoua, directed by Nicolas Wendl.
Like I said, I love short films but I know it’s ironic, they have a short lifespan, so I wanted to achieve more with the animated ones. That’s why all the short animated films I write and produce are always attached to a foundation or a cause that helps children battling a disease.
The one I’m working on right now, with director Sabrina Stoll, is attached to the Make-A-Wish foundation. This film will also have French and German versions. So we also have kids from the foundation in Switzerland and Germany recording the dialog for the main characters. Having the films bringing people from around the world together for a great cause is really something that is important to me. I’m always extremely proud of those films.
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
I didn’t start writing stories during my film studies at UCSB. I actually started creating stories when I was young by making small comic strips, but it’s when a friend of mine committed suicide that I started writing short stories. I was about seventeen and I had a very hard time comprehending his act, so I wrote a story about him. I somehow found it cathartic to come up with a story wherein the end, his choice would at least be understandable. I haven’t stopped writing since.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm7364826/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tiziana_giammarino/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TizianaGiamma/
Image Credits
Nicolas Wendl Marina Horowicz Fabrice Chapuis Fabrice Chapuis Adam Ottke
