Teona Strugar Mitevska was born in 1974 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.