Our teachers

Meet the team

Five working filmmakers, including writers, directors, and actors, who also teach high school students in the film program at Northwestern University's National High School Institute.

Andrew Wells Ryder

Andrew is a writer, director, actor, and musician living in Queens, New York. Originally from Texas, he trained as an actor at the University of North Carolina School of the Arts (BFA) and went on to earn an MFA in Writing and Directing from Columbia University.

His recent short films include Corn and The Bandaged Man (CUFF 2026). As an actor, he has performed in New York and regional theater, including playing Bobby in Company at Cygnet Theatre, and in independent films such as Lace Crater, which premiered at TIFF. He also writes songs and plays in the band Rudy.

Greta Díaz Moreau

Greta is a screenwriter and director who grew up in a small village in rural Spain, a place that still shapes her bold, emotional, and often funny films. Her latest short, Loquita Por Ti, premiered at Palm Springs International ShortFest with a Special Mention for Best International Film. It went on to screen at Slamdance, SEMINCI, Clermont-Ferrand, and many other festivals, won awards at home and abroad, and was selected for the 2026 CAA Moebius Showcase.

Greta won a 2025 National Board of Review Student Grant and works as an associate producer for Oscar-nominated filmmaker Ramin Bahrani on his upcoming features. She holds an MFA in Directing from Columbia University, where she also teaches, and lives in New York City.

Fiona Obertinca

Fiona is a Swedish-Albanian screenwriter and director who has made fourteen independent narrative and documentary shorts, several of which premiered at festivals in Sweden, the UK, and the U.S. Her first film, Shpëtimi, about her family's escape from the war in Kosovo, won the Bronze prize at the Pixel Short Film Festival in 2012.

Before graduating from the American Film Institute Conservatory as a Directing Fellow, she worked in development in Hollywood on shows including MAX's Made for Love and the BBC's Ridley Road. Fiona grew up as a refugee in Sweden, raised by a single mother of four, and writes about resilient women who beat the odds, with plenty of laughter and tears along the way.

Ari Shapiro

Ari is a filmmaker who has worked with HBO Max, TNT, and Nastya, the star of the hugely popular YouTube children's show Like Nastya. His award-winning short films have screened at festivals around the world, and his screenplays have been honored by the Palm Springs International Screenplay Competition and the Humanitas College Comedy Awards.

Ari first came to the National High School Institute as a student and later returned as a Faculty Associate. He trained in theatre at Northwestern University and acted for years Off-Broadway and in commercials before moving to film. He recently graduated from Columbia University's MFA Film Program with Faculty Honors in screenwriting.

Juli Del Prete

Juli is a writer, filmmaker, and photographer. She co-created, co-writes, and stars in The Right Swipe, a romantic comedy web series on OTV (Open Television). She recently co-produced short films by Isaac Gómez and Monty Cole and finished post-production on Caroline, her debut short as a director.

Juli was assistant director on the world premiere of Tracy Letts's Linda Vista, which played Steppenwolf, the Mark Taper Forum, and Broadway. Her writing has been recognized by the Luminarts Cultural Foundation, the Austin Film Festival, and the O'Neill National Playwrights Conference. When she's not on set, she's usually walking her lab/pit mix, Buffy, with a giant iced coffee in hand.