Mona Nicoara

Mona Nicoară started working in film in 1997 as an Associate Producer for "Children Underground," 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, and was awarded the Grand Jury Prize for Best US Feature at AFI SilverDocs.

Her second feature-length documentary, "The Distance between Me and Me," received a Gopo Award for best Romanian documentary and the audience award at Films de Cannes à Bucarest, screened at the Brooklyn Academy of Music and Trieste, among others, and was the highest-grossing documentary in Romania in 2019.

Nicoară’s other collaborations include principal consulting on Alexander Nanau’s double Oscar-nominated "Collective" (2019) and on his Cinema Eye Honors-winner "Toto and His Sisters" (2014), as well as on Ana Lungu’s upcoming "The Present of Things Past."

Prior to coming to NYU, Nicoară taught film, writing, and literature at Columbia University, the Cooper Union, New York University, Rutgers, and SUNY Purchase, and also worked as a festival programmer.

Nicoară was born and raised in Romania, where she led past lives as a poet and human rights activist.

Courses

Sight and Sound Documentary

Education

MA in English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University
BA in Literature and Linguistics, Bucharest University