Rita Baghdadi is an Emmy award-winning Moroccan-American documentary filmmaker and cinematographer known for the intimacy of her bold, character-driven films.
Her feature doc SIRENS premiered at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival and won the Grand Jury Prize at Outfest and the One in a Million Documentary prize at the Sun Valley Film Festival. The film was praised as “utterly charming” by the Hollywood Reporter, “deeply moving,” “smartly crafted",” and “a bold rebellion.” Executive Produced by Natasha Lyonne and Maya Rudolph, the film screened in over 100 festivals internationally, was released in theaters across the U.S by Oscilloscope, and is now available to stream on VOD. Her film FINDING THE LIGHT just premiered as part of the PHOTOGRAPHER series on Disney+ in March 2024.
Rita is a 2024 Concordia Fellow, a 2023 Sundance Momentum Fellow, and DOC NYC’s ‘40 under 40’ class of 2022, as well as a member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia and an active mentor. She co-founded Lady and Bird Films and is currently in development and production on several new films and series, including STALLIONS (funded in part by Chicken & Egg Films and Catapult Film Fund), and WILD BOYS, a doc series based on the hit podcast in partnership with Vox and Campside Media. When she’s not behind the camera, she’s always looking for a horse to ride. She is repped by WME.