Teona Strugar Mitevska was born in 1974 into an artistic family, in Skopje, Macedonia. Between the ages of six to twelve, Teona was a child actor. Later on she trained as a painter and obtained her BA in Graphic Design. She ditched a successful career as art director for internationally renowned companies (Saatchi and Saatchi, Virgo Publicis) for filmmaking. In 1998, she enrolled in the MFA film program at New York University's Tisch School of Arts. She made her debut as short film director in 2001 with Veta, which received the Special Jury award at the Berlin Film Festival. How I Killed a Saint is her first feature film, which was made under the auspices of SISTERS AND BROTHER MITEVSKI, a company she established together with her brother and sister. The film premiered at the 2004 Rotterdam Film festival, Tiger Competition and has won numerous prizes around the world like Best European Film at the Crossing Europe Film festival, Linz, Austria. Her penultimate film I Am from Titov Veles has been theatrically distributed in 15 countries in 2008/2009, including in the USA, and was screened in the official competition at the following festivals: Berlin Film Festival – Panorama Section; Sarajevo Film Festival, where it won Special Jury Award; Toronto Film Festival -Discovery section. The film also screened at 2008 Cannes Film Festival - ACID selection. The film was invited to more than 80 festivals around the world and won over 20 international awards. Her third feature The Woman Who Brushed off Her Tears with Victoria Abril made its world premiere at the 2012 Berlin Film Festival (Panorama Special).
With the support of the Eurimages Fund of the Council of Europe
