Roopa Gogineni is a Paris-based filmmaker, photographer and curator.
For a decade she lived in Nairobi where she developed a collaborative practice, working alongside communities of resistance across the region. Her films, described as intimate and urgent, have premiered at festivals including IDFA, SXSW, Hot Docs and Sheffield Doc/Fest. I AM BISHA, her documentary chronicling a satirical puppet show in rebel-held Sudan, received the Oscar-qualifying Full Frame Award for Best Short and a Rory Peck Award. SUDDENLY TV, her latest short film about magical thinking and revolution, earned the SXSW Special Jury Award and IndieLisboa Short Film Grand Prize. She has directed documentaries for The New York Times, BBC and Al Jazeera and has led projects supported by the Sundance Institute, Doc Society, CatchLight, Points North Institute, Logan Nonfiction, Firelight and Chicken & Egg Pictures.
Roopa holds degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Oxford. For four years she supported the PASTRES research program at The Institute of Development Studies as a visual methods advisor and curator. She has taught at Parsons Paris and lectured at Carnegie Mellon and Sciences Po.
She is a co-founder of Sunduq Al Sudan, a collective of filmmakers and artists supporting mutual aid groups on the frontlines of Sudan’s counterrevolutionary war.
awards, fellowships, exhibitions
2023 SXSW Documentary Short Special Jury Award
2023 IndieLisboa Short Film Grand Prize
2021 Logan Nonfiction Fellowship
2021 CatchLight Fellow
2020 Women Photograph Grant Recipient
2018 FRONTLINE/Firelight Investigative Journalism Fellowship
2018 Rory Peck Award for News Features
2018 One World Media Short Film Award
2018 Full Frame Jury Award for Best Short
2017 Firelight Media Short Film Grant
2016 "Over There” Exhibition, Annex Gallery
2016 Exhibition at Women Deliver, Copenhagen
2015 One World Media Awards Short Film Nominee
2014 RISC Benefit Show, Aperture Gallery
2012 Photo Lucida Critical Mass Finalist
2012 Ian Parry Scholarship Group Show
2012 Lucie Foundation Photo Mentorship Program
2012 "The Day I was Destroyed" Exhibition, Annex Gallery
2011 "Coal Colony" Exhibition, St. Antony’s College, University of Oxford
clients
The New York Times | The Washington Post | San Francisco Chronicle | The Guardian | Stern | Capital | Al Jazeera | BBC | TOPIC | Bloomberg | Businessweek | The Sunday Times | The Telegraph | CNN | VICE | Lucky Peach | Eater | NPR | VOA | RFI