Film Curator & Thought Leader

Roya Rastegar has over 15 years professional experience in the film industry with a demonstrated  commitment to breaking the careers of underrepresented filmmakers in the industry. She has served on the selection committee of marquis American film festivals, including Sundance, Tribeca, and the LA Film Festival. Rastegar is recognized across the industry for her pivotal role launching the directorial careers of some of the most acclaimed filmmakers of color, female filmmakers and LGBTQ filmmakers working today.

She is currently curating a year-long retrospective series on the "New Black Realism" filmmaking wave for the American Cinematheque. 

Rastegar is a critically acclaimed scholar and historian, grounded in 15+ years of experience in the film industry as a film curator and producer.  She has become one of the foremost thought leaders around race, representation, and cinema. Her writing on gender, race and popular culture can be found in Wired, The Nation, and The Huffington Post, alongside academic peer-reviewed journals, including Camera Obscura and Screen Journal.  Rastegar presents her research at academic conferences and industry events around the world. 

Rastegar teaches critical race theory, gender studies, and film theory/praxis at universities across the country, most recently at Bryn Mawr College and UCLA.  

Rastegar is a first-generation Iranian-American raised in Atlanta, Georgia. 

She graduated from Wellesley College, magna cum laude with a degree in Economics and Mathematics. After a few years as an investment banker, she decided to pursue her doctorate under the guidance of activist and historian Angela Y. Davis, and feminist film critic and theorist B. Ruby Rich. Dr. Rastegar holds a Masters in Feminist Studies and a PhD in the History of Consciousness from the University of California. 

Roya is currently finishing a manuscript on American film festivals, the history and contemporary reality of how race and gender operate in visual culture, and the role of film festivals amidst massive change in the film industry.

Rastegar is an award winning filmmaker, story producer and writer.  She has worked in film, television and theater. She is a 2014 Creative Capital grantee in Emerging Fields.

Rastegar produced the documentary portrait of Lady Gaga, GAGA: FIVE FOOT TWO (2017), a Live Nation / Netflix Original, which premiered to critical acclaim at the Toronto International Film Festival.  She story produced the acclaimed series THE LEGACY OF BLACK WALL STREET, which aired on OWN in May 2021.  Among her other producing credits is CYPHER (2022, forthcoming) starring Tierra Whack; VENUS AS A BOY (2021), which was selected for the Tribeca Film Festival and received a top Audience Award; MADRES (2021), a Blumhouse/Amazon Studios co-production; and THE OBITUARY OF TUNDE JOHNSON (2019), the directorial debut for acclaimed show-runner Ali LeRoi (Everybody Hates Chris), which world premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival.  

Rastegar is also the co-writer of WILDNESS (2012), a magical-realist documentary directed by MacArthur Genius fellow Wu Tsang. WILDNESS premiered at MoMA’s Documentary Fortnight, SxSW Film Festival, won the Grand Jury Prize at Outfest, and has been written about by notable academics Jose Munoz, Fred Moten, and Jack Halberstam.