Roopa Gogineni is a photographer and filmmaker from West Virginia, now based between Paris and Atlanta.
For a decade she lived in Nairobi where she developed a practice rooted in co-creation, working alongside communities of resistance across the region. She directed reality television in Somalia, documented revolutionary theater in Sudan, and chronicled the journey of Mau Mau veterans suing the UK government for colonial-era abuses in Kenya. Her films have premiered at festivals including IDFA, Hot Docs, SXSW, Full Frame and Sheffield Doc/Fest. Her short film I AM BISHA earned the Oscar-qualifying Full Frame Jury Award for Best Short, a One World Media Award, and a Rory Peck Award. SUDDENLY TV, her latest short about magical thinking and revolution, earned the 2023 SXSW Special Jury Award and the 2023 IndieLisboa Short Film Grand Prize. She has received fellowships from CatchLight, Logan Nonfiction and FRONTLINE/Firelight.
Roopa holds degrees from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Oxford. She is a visual methods advisor and curator to the PASTRES research program at The Institute of Development Studies.
She is a member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia, Diversify Photo, Women Photograph, and The Authority Collective. Roopa speaks French, Spanish, and Telugu and gets by in Swahili and Arabic. She has completed first aid and hostile environment training.
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
Selected 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
instagram a Q&A and a conversation