Born in Thessaloniki, Greece in 1970, Lazaridi first took up pen and paper at age four, filling notebooks with childhood stories. Her mother, set designer and Thessaloniki University professor, Ioanna Manoledaki, introduced Christina to theatre at an early stage. (Maternal talent actually came in handy, when Manoledaki created sets and costumes for ONE DAY CROSSING, which was shot in 1999 in Budapest ). Kudos traced Lazaridi's creativity, as she went to the US to study at Princeton University. Her undergraduate thesis earned the top creative poetry award, while her screenwriting studies at Columbia University also ended with distinctions. There followed work on documentary films (ASSIGNMENT RESCUE, 1997) and in 1998 her screenplay for SEARCHING FOR MYRIAM was funded by the European Union's Script Development Program. Today, Lazaridi is based in Los Angeles, preparing a feature film with Joan Stein yet again. Their new story will feature the same characters as ONE DAY CROSSING, only set in 1956. The project - to be shot on High Definition video - is being developed by Madstone Films. Shuttling between US coasts, the young screenwriter, who had enough faith in words not to actually prepare an Oscar® speech, looks forward to more European collaborations maybe even in Greece.  Nominated for Achievement in Live Action Short Films 2000: ONE DAY CROSSING - Producer (w. Joan Stein) 1 nomination