Indie moviemakers often take on other roles—entrepreneur, advocate, teacher. Add cultural ambassador and diplomat to that list for some of America’s top cinematic thinkers.

It’s the smallest and most obvious thing, and yet my life was at stake: I had to learn to look to the right when crossing the street.  That’s my first memory when I think back on the exchange program I attended in the United Kingdom as a junior in college.  Like everyone who takes the big jump into studying abroad, I was immersed in a different culture full of new people, foods, and sounds.

In a Senate confirmation hearing this afternoon (July 30), Evan Ryan, President Obama’s nominee for Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA), said that exchanges “capitalize on American strengths and appeals,” and that ECA is “the lifeblood of public diplomacy." Speaking before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Ryan underlined the powerful role people-to-people exchanges play in advancing U.S. public diplomacy and foreign policy goals.