Christine La Monte

CHRISTINE LA MONTE producer of Oscar®-nominated film VIVA VERDI! is a writer/director and former studio marketing executive at Disney, Universal and Orion Pictures. As the founder and president of La Monte Productions, she develops and produces independent films with international scope and cultural impact, focusing on powerful stories at the intersection of art, music and politics. Currently under the La Monte Productions banner, she has three Italian feature documentaries: VIVA VERDI! Academy Award® nominated for Best Song, “Sweet Dreams of Joy” by Nicholas Pike, an intimate glimpse into the lives of the celebrated opera singers and musicians living out their “third act” while mentoring music students who live among them at Casa Verdi Milan, the home that Giuseppe Verdi built in 1896 - she serves as producer, p.g.a., writer and executive producer; Oscar and Donatello contender AI WEIWEI’S TURANDOT, which follows renown revolutionary artist, Ai Weiwei, in his operatic directorial debut, as he brings his artistic vision and iconoclastic activism to Puccini’s Turandot at the Rome Opera House - serving as producer on this Italian/ US Co-Production with Incipit Film and La Monte Productions; and lastly, serving as producer on the slow cinema FIGLI DEL FIUME/ CHILDREN OF THE RIVER about three men in search of meaning find their ancestral roots along Italy’s Po River currently in post production. In development is a feature film, is legal thriller, Justice Deferred, by Len Williams with Laura Curran attached to adapt the screenplay. La Monte produced the Palm Springs International Film Festival Audience Award-winning short film, DANDELION DHARMA; the Gary Goldstein scripted play, “Three Grooms & A Bride,” and the syndicated television talk show, Marilu, starring Marilu Henner. Her directing credits include the Screen Actors Guild’s “A Heart United” with Sharon Lawrence and Jo Beth Williams, and “The Angina Monologues” with Brenda Strong. La Monte spent over 6 years at the public relations/marketing firm, Rogers and Cowan as the Executive Vice President of the Motion Picture Group; as an international strategic marketer, she worked at Italian studio, CineCittá in Rome, and served as Marketing Executive, at TV 3 New Zealand, while living in Auckland.  A long-time member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, La Monte is a member of the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and the Alliance of Women Directors. She is a past faculty member of New York’s School of Visual Arts where she initiated the Dusty Awards, an annual festival of student short films and awards ceremony. On the Advisory Board of LA-based SEEfest, she is a frequent guest speaker/panelist at independent filmmaking events, including USC, UCLA and New York Film Academy; recently, she was the Chair of the Humanitas Awards jury panel for two consecutive years. With US/Italian dual citizenship, she divides her time between Los Angeles and Rome. www.lamonteproductions.com