Pia Clemente is a Philippines-born American film producer best known for being the first Filipina-American nominated for an Oscar for Our Time is Up in the live action short film category in 2005[1] and as the producer of The Debut which was the first major Filipino American film to be shown in national theaters.[2]
Clemente was born in the Philippines and removed to New Jersey at the age of three.[3] is a 1989 graduate of the Peddie School in Hightstown, New Jersey.[4] Clemente first attended Lehigh University in 1989 and later transferred to Barnard College in 1990 where she was on both tennis teams. She was an Academic All-Ivy tennis player and had dreams of playing professionally before she suffered an injury and turned her interest toward theater and film. While at Barnard, Clemente produced a short film called Christmas in New York, which later won the Academy Award for Dramatic Short Student Film in 1997.[5] In 1993, Clemente graduated from Barnard College with a degree in English. Afterwards, she earned a Master of Fine Arts from the American Film Institute Conservatory.