Te Shima Anusha Brennen

Te Shima Anusha Brennen (they/them) is a visual storyteller based in Brooklyn, New York. Their work focuses on covering race, gender, and sexuality. As an emerging documentary filmmaker, they aim to tell nuanced stories about Black, queer and trans people as they navigate institutions and systems not built to support them.  

Te made their co-directoral and cinematography debut with their film Hold On To Me, which premiered at NewFest Film Festival in October 2022 and has traveled to festivals in London, Amsterdam, Seattle, Atlanta, and LA in 2023. In 2023, Te was awarded the duPont/Judy F. Crichton award as well as participated in the Pulitzer Reporting Fellowship and the Cucalorus Works-in-Progress Lab. Currently, Te is co-directing/producing a feature documentary supported by ITVS Open Call. The film, titled Mother Wit, follows three Black trans women grieving the death of their matriarch as they fight to achieve their academic ambitions and fulfill the promises they made to her. They have pitched at the Double Exposure Film Festival and the Athena Film Festival’s Works-In-Progress forum. Te is currently a part of the 2024 Black Film Space Mentorship program.

Outside of filmmaking, Te advocates to improve journalistic practices that produce harmful narratives about the trans community. They recently finished a fellowship at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University, where they researched how journalists can build trust in trans communities as the first step to better reporting on the community. Te Shima is also working on a multimedia project, funded by a Magic Seed Grant from Columbia University’s Brown Institute of Media Innovation, that will serve as a guide for storytellers covering trans issues.