After some years spent in the organization of exhibitions of contemporary art, Teresa Cavina begins her career in the Venice Mostra in 1988 where she takes care of the international relations, the research and the selection of films, the coordination of the selection committee, the relations with the distributors and the international producers successively during 10 years.
She works beside directors such as Gilo Pontecorvo or Guglielmo Biraghi. "During this period, the festivals were not so specialized, she says. We did a bit of everything, whatever our position was. Every edition was a battle that we had to win. I learnt to know from top to bottom the "machine" festival".
In 1998 she joins Marco Müller to the Festival of Locarno where she takes care of the film selection. "After 10 years in Venice, I looked for a more direct contact with the creators and for a more flexible structure turned to the independent directors."

From 2001 till 2005, she will be a co-director of the Festival with Irene Bignardi. "It was necessary to redraw the objectives of Locarno when numerous changes occurred in the landscape of the European festivals. We opened it to other forms than traditional cinema (documentary, video art) and we created meetings between professionals of Europe and the other regions of world (India, Cuba, China) ".

Of 2005 to 2008 Teresa takes the artistic direction of the Festival of the Film of Rome. "It was a fascinating experience to create a festival from scratch, with the aim of reaching an international reputation from the first edition. To conceive and operate this festival, I was able to lean on all my international networks in America of the North and the South, Europe, Asia, South Africa and the Middle East."

Besides, Teresa Cavina is, or was, consultant for the festivals of Tirana, Honk Kong, Sarajevo, Courmayeur, Abu Dhabi. She also gave courses in San Francisco State University, to the Università della Svizzera Italiana or to the Università La Cattolica di Milano.