New York-based filmmaker Monica Sharf has a special gift for creating strikingly vivid filmic portraits of real people. Her films have garnered critical acclaim as well as numerous national and international awards.

Her current short, While We Lie Sleeping, is a 16mm black and white silent short, which pays tribute to the women and men who have served and are still, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. Sharf is in post production on a companion black and white 16mm short dedicated to the troops from all the wars, November 12. Sharf is currently filming, Tangled up in Blue, a 16mm color short, Serena Bocchino's latest collection of paintings, "The Catch Series," to be screened September 20, 2007, at the TRia Gallery opening in Soho, New York.

Sharf's award-winning film, Tribute 9.11, was created to capture the emotions, impact, loving and care that flowed from all of the people affected by the day of terror in New York on September 11th. Tribute 9.11 was also an Official Entry for the Academy Awards®, and was acquired by the Library of Congress for their National Archives. Additionally, the film received the Women in Film International Finishing Fund Prize and was screened to over 1,000 members of the film industry at the 2002 Crystal & Lucy Awards in Los Angeles. HBO and Brad Grey Pictures used footage from the film in their Emmy Award® winning documentary, In Memoriam New York City 9/11/01.

Other films include her award-winning documentary short, P. I. Snaps, which was screened at The Museum of Modern Art as part of an International Short Film Festival and aired on The Independent Film Channel in early 2002. The film won "Best Documentary" at The Melbourne International Film Festival as well as 5 other awards, and was screened at over 17 festivals in the United States and abroad. It features one of the most sought after private investigators in the field of trademark policing.

Sharf also directed a short public service film featuring the legendary jazz, blues and folk artist Odetta, and the Harlem Girls Choir. Other projects include a short on prominent New York painter. Serena Bocchino, entitled Observer Highway Revisited, which screened at The Museum of Modern Art as part of an award-winning International Short Film Festival, and aired on The Independent Film Channel.

Sharf's projects in development include: Dara, a Valuable Life, a five-part documentary mini series, which will follow four or five women in the four various stages of breast cancer; Dark Highway, a pilot short for a television series and feature film; this narrative short, based on actual events, has award-winning actors, Kevin Conway, Paul Calderon and Glynn Turman and cinematographer, Ken Kelsch are attached.

Graduating from Columbia University's Graduate Arts program with an MFA in directing, Sharf worked at New York's premier experimental theatre, La Mama; Lincoln Centers' The Vivian Beaumont Theatre; La Compagnie du Theatre in Paris; and the Opera Company of Boston. She has also directed several off-off Broadway plays and staged readings.