• Marta Gené, Audiovisual Communication alumna, writer and producer of the NBC series Manifest (Los Angeles, USA)

When Marta Gené Camps finished her undergraduate degree in Audiovisual Communication at UPF in 2003, she knew she wanted to work in film and that she had to continue her studies. She won a Fulbright Scholarship to study an MFA in Directing at the American Film Institute and she packed her bags and left for Los Angeles (USA). ‘I was only supposed to stay for two years, but when the scholarship ended, I found work and I never went back to Catalonia’, she says.

Marta currently works as a writer and producer for the show Manifest (Warner Bros/NBC). ‘My job is to work with the other writers to develop the plot and storyline for the season and write the scripts that I’m assigned. Once the script is written, I supervise the casting, locations, filming and post-production of the episode’, she explains.

She has very fond memories of UPF, from the excitement of being accepted to the Audiovisual Communication programme to the lifelong friends she made. ‘For the first time ever, I was surrounded by people with similar interests, hobbies and dreams to mine. It was a very enriching experience in every way, and I think I matured as a person and creatively’, she says.

Of her university friends, some work as writers for television studios in Barcelona, which offers her insight into the differences in the industry between the two countries. ‘In the US, it is very different, especially in terms of the pay and the control an American television writer has over the final product. Also, we have a very active union in the US, which looks out for our interests and guarantees writers’ salaries and rights with regard to the television studios’, she says.

“In the US, we have a very active union that looks out for our interests”

Marta is comfortable working for American television, but she admits to missing home. ‘I always dream of coming back, because I miss Barcelona, my family and friends. But for now, I don’t have any job prospects or specific plans other than coming to visit.’ She says she would someday like to create her own series and make her own film, as a screenwriter and director.

One of Marta’s other creative facets, in addition to her audiovisual work, is writing children’s novels, linked to a love of books she has had since she was little. ‘My grandmother always explains how, even before I could read, she would find me sitting with a book in my lap.’ But it was not until some years later that this hobby took shape. ‘I was working as a producer, frustrated because none of the projects were going anywhere.’ Then, a friend from UPF, Joan Antoni Martín Piñol, suggested I write a children’s novel. I wrote Sopa de Cua de Sargantana (Lizard Tail Soup), which won the Edebé Prize for Children’s Literature in 2009.’ Although she has new ideas for children’s novels, she says that her work as a screenwriter does not leave her much time to write them. ‘I am sure I will write more’, she says.

Photo gallery

Marta Gené in Los Angeles, during a shooting and writing a screenplay