Profile: Dominique Othenin-Girard - Swiss filmmaker and Sinophile

CWhen I was 12 or 13, a revelation came to me: I needed to leave a legacy behind. I told myself I would make love to and impregnate as many women as possible. Later, I realised that my films would be my babies. After they are conceived, I nurture them to their birth. Then I feel down - post-natal depression.

I was born into a creative family. My father was a painter and my mother a clairvoyant and an artist. As a child, I spent a few years in Iran, where my father taught at an art school he had co-founded. My father was rather strict. To avoid getting into trouble, I learned to tell lies - credible stories about things like where I went after school. Later in life, I had to make a conscious effort not to lie. Nevertheless, my storytelling skills have helped my filmmaking career.

My parents divorced and I returned to Switzerland with my mother and siblings. We lived in a small town called Rolle, on Lake Geneva. I had a tough time fitting into Swiss society. I found it suffocating. After secondary school, I ventured to London in search of a photography job. One day I came across the London Film School, in a rundown part of Covent Garden. It was a "light bulb" moment: it became crystal clear what I would do with my life. Without even an undergraduate degree, I persuaded the school to accept me onto its master's degree course in directing. There, I felt a sense of belonging. After graduating in 1981, I had the good fortune to work as an assistant director for Karel Reisz when he directed The French Lieutenant's Woman.

After I returned to Switzerland, I sold vacuum cleaners to finance starting a production company, through which I made After Darkness, a psychological thriller starring John Hurt. I co-wrote the screenplay and directed it. A breakthrough for me, it was nominated for a Silver Bear award at the 35th Berlin International Film Festival. I was 25.

The film market in Switzerland, sadly, is small. So I emigrated to Los Angeles with my new American wife, even though we didn't know a single soul. As fate had it, our landlord was a screen writer - there were many of those around - with good contacts at a production company, with which I (went on to develop) horror film Night Angel. I later directed two more horror movies, Halloween 5 and Omen IV.

I honed my craft as a director during my 13 years in Hollywood. But I left to escape the horror film label and, more importantly, because I couldn't finance the film (there that) I really wanted to make - Sandra, C'est La Vie, about the life of a young woman who suffers from Down's Syndrome. It was inspired by my wife's sister. Guiding an actor with a disability posed its challenges but the effort paid off. It became one of the highest rated films on TV5Monde, in France, and RTS, in Switzerland.