Maria Laura Ruggiero

Maria Laura was born in Argentina in 1978, where she got a degree in Image and Sound Design from the University of Buenos Aires. She later specialized in screenwriting and animation getting a degree as Professional 3D animator from Image Campus. In 2003, she won the Bafilm award in Screenwriting granted by Bafilm-Instituto Cultural de la Provincia de Buenos Aires-and INCAA. Having won several screenwriting awards, she was selected for the Berlinale Talent Campus as a Latin American Talent in the areas of screenwriting and direction. During the Berlinale, she was selected for the Script Clinic and the Doc Docs programs, hosted by Equinoxe, Script Factory and the Blake and Friedman Agency. Maria Laura's mentor during the Script Clinic was renowned script doctor Tom Schlesinger. During the Doc Docs program, she developed "Surfing Favela" that turned out to be one of the ten Winners of The Fuel Experiment, a contest sponsored by Fuel Tv and Fox. She wrote and produced it with Tomás Crowder. Maria Laura was awarded the "Young Creators Prize", granted by the National Board of Culture of Argentina for Outstanding achievement in Audiovisual Arts. She's been selected for several film programs in Europe and Latin America, being the "Film Program Cannes: Master Course on Producing" one of the most significant program she attended. The Film Program Cannes is run by Ralph Ackerman and NYU Professor Robert Nickson. Among the most important learning opportunities in her career, she attended several Screenwriting classes at UCLA and at the Film and Arts Foundation (SF), gaining a different insight to the world of screenwriting. Maria Laura is now working on directing her first feature film "Arcos" while she writes and produces several other shorts. In 2006 she founded Seiren Films, a company devoted to Content Design for Film, Tv and Animation.