Ana Vijdea was born and raised in Buzău, Romania. She recently graduated from DocNomads, an itinerant master’s program in documentary film directing. Prior to that, she earned an MFA in Film from Syracuse University in New York, where she studied under the auspices of the Fulbright program, and a BA in Cinematography and Media from Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Throughout her studies, she created several films and a VR project that were screened and awarded at international film festivals such as IDFA, True/False, and Visions du Réel, among others. In 2017, she was named one of the “25 New Faces of Independent Cinema'' by Filmmaker Magazine. Her most recent film, May the Earth Become the Sky (2022), received the Best Film award at Doclisboa, was nominated for the Silver Eye Award at Jihlava IFF East Silver, and was one of the short film nominees for the Doc Alliance Award. It was also screened at more than 20 film festivals, and it was acquired by several VoD platforms.