Mona Nicoară is a filmmaker, curator, writer, and educator. She started working in film in 1997 as an Associate Producer for "Children Undeground," which received the Special Jury Prize at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Feature Documentary. Her directorial debut, "Our School," premiered in the US at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival, went on to over 70 festivals worldwide, was awarded the Grand Jury Prize for Best US Feature at AFI SilverDocs. Her latest film, "The Distance between Me and Me," received the audience award at Films de Cannes à Bucarest, screened at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Trieste. Nicoară also works as a festival programmer, and has been teaching film, writing, and literature at Columbia University, the Cooper Union, New York University, and Rutgers. Her writings have been published in The Guardian, Decât o revistă, Dilema, and Scena 9, among others.