Rajvi Desai

Rajvi Desai (he/they/she) is a non-binary South Asian journalist and 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 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, and co-directing first feature, Mother Wit, about three Black trans women struggling to process the grief of losing their mother and mentor, while fighting to achieve their academic ambitions and fulfill the promises they made to her.

Rajvi was also selected to pitch Mother Wit at Double Exposure Film Festival’s pitching forum in October 2022, as well as Athena Film Festival’s Works-In-Progress forum in March 2023. 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, Seattle and Los Angeles in 2023. Rajvi is currently a fellow at the Sundance Institute’s Transgender Possibilities Intensive, the Pulitzer Center, and Bitchitra Collective. Rajvi’s work has been featured in both local and international publications, such as amNY.com, Surface Magazine, The Swaddle, The Quint and Eastern-Standard Times.