Rajvi Desai

Rajvi Desai is a non-binary South Asian filmmaker based in New York City. Rajvi’s work focuses on gender issues as they intersect with race, class, and caste, both in the United States and in South Asia. Rajvi is the recipient of a seed grant from Columbia University’s Brown Institute for Media Innovation, with which Rajvi is currently co-developing a multimedia project, TRANSforming Journalism, for the journalism industry to better cover trans communities of color. A short documentary Rajvi edited and co-directed, Hold On To Me, premiered at NewFest in October 2022, and has traveled to festivals in London, Amsterdam and LA in 2023. Rajvi was also selected to pitch Mother Wit at Double Exposure Film Festival’s pitching forum in October, as well as Athena Film Festival’s Works-In-Progress forum in March 2023. Rajvi is currently a fellow at the Sundance Institute’s Transgender Possibilities Intensive. Rajvi’s work has been featured in both local and international publications, such as amNY.com, Surface Magazine, The Swaddle, and Eastern-Standard Times.