Reaa Puri is a multidisciplinary filmmaker whose films confront issues of sexual and state violence, and work toward reclamation of sovereignty; from the microcosmic level of the body to the macrocosmic level of land, belonging, and place-hood. In her creative process, Reaa centers collaboration and self-transformation as tools to simultaneously challenge the colonial origins of cinema and move towards a just future.
She is a TEDX speaker and recipient of two Cannes Lion awards, the Roselyn Schneider Eisner Prize and the SFFilm Holbrooke Female Fund. Her short films have played at Sundance Film Festival, South by Southwest Film Festival, London Asia Film Festival, SF IndieFest and BAMPFA. Previously, Reaa was the Director of Photography and Editor for Nike’s 2019 Black History Month campaign, show-runner of a Vh1 TV show and assistant director on feature film Mary Kom, streaming on Netflix. She has formerly led video teams at Wear Your Voice Magazine, Carbonated.TV and Hearst Digital Media, and her photography has been published in Vogue Magazine.
Reaa is a co-founder of Breaktide Productions, a women-of-color owned production company, rooted in intersectional solidarity, producing films on issues of environmental racism, human rights and indigenous sovereignty. Breaktide was named to YBCA’s 100 list of change-makers in 2019. Reaa earned her B.A. in film and media studies from the University of California, Berkeley. Her film practice is informed by her queerness, Kashmiri-Sikh heritage, and upbringing between Berkeley, Mumbai, Delhi, and Kuwait.
Reaa is a 2021 and 2020 artist-in-residence at the San Francisco Filmhouse, 2020 UnionDocs’ Summer Documentary Lab Fellow, and recipient of the Bay Area Video Coalition’s doc-filmmaker development program. She is a member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia, Free The Work, Film Fatales, A-Doc, Authority Collective, and the Documentary Cinematographers Alliance.