A native New Yorker, Valerie Kontakos has been living between Athens and New York since 2003. After graduating from New York University, she worked as a sound editor for the Maysles brothers, Deborah Dickson, Anita Thacher and others. In 1989 she directed her first feature documentary A Quality of Light. In 1994 she became the deputy director of the Hellenic Foundation in NYC, where she started the NYC Greek Film Festival and curated a monthly program for the American Museum of the Moving Image. Her second feature, Who’s on First? (2006), aired in the US, Greece, Finland and South Korea. Her third feature, Mana (2015), went viral during the 2018 wildfires in Greece, helping the nuns featured in the film rebuild their orphanage. She founded the production company Exile Films in Athens in 2007 and has been operating the non-profit Exile Room, focusing on social outreach through documentary, since 2009. She has been on the Board of Directors of the Greek Cinematheque for over a decade. Queen of the Deuce is her fourth feature.