Laura Bernieri

Vocation

Family

American script writer, producer and distributor of independent films, Bernieri is an entertainment entrepreneur. She was a co-producer of “Next Stop, Wonderland,” a 1998 hit movie about love and romance in Boston starring Hope Davis. Miramax paid $6 million for the movie, at the time making it the second-largest sum of money paid for an independent film. In October 2003 she founded The Circuit, a company whose mission it is to distribute independent films to the film-going public. After graduation from college, Bernieri headed for Los Angeles, with an intention to become an actress. But she soon found her talent and her love lay in writing. Realizing that "I didn't have the psychological stamina for the cattle call (of acting)," she returned to Massachusetts in 1986. The mother of two children, she dreamed of opening an independent studio but had no resources to do so. Instead she founded the Harvard Square Screenwriters group. A year later she met her husband, an English teacher. They eloped two months later and she had two babies within the next four years, Louis Dario, born July 9, 1988 at 3:03 PM in Winchester, MA and Michael Leon, born December 19, 1991 at 10:28 PM in Haverhill, MA (from their birth certificates, rated AA). Her husband, Louis Michael Bernieri was born on August 16, 1955 in Brooklyn, NY according to the children’s birth certificates. She landed a job as a consultant for Robbins Entertainment, where she was associate producer of "Squeeze," a film which she and her colleagues sold to Miramax. In 2000, she produced and distributed “Passage to Paradise.” She is known for her ability to recognize talent and market it.