Reaa Puri is a filmmaker and production leader with over a decade of experience working across documentary, narrative film, impact campaigns, and brand storytelling.

She makes work about what connects us across difference. Her productions span multi-country impact campaigns, national awareness initiatives, and award-winning documentary and narrative projects for diverse audiences, nonprofits, and cultural institutions.

As a storyteller, Reaa is as interested in studying the craft as she practices it. She is intentional about the space a story opens in its audience; the potential to move people physically and emotionally, to shift understanding, to produce wonder. She brings that same intentionality to the process of making the work, not just the end result.

Reaa is the founder of Reascend Creative, a TEDx speaker, and the recipient of two Cannes Lions Gold Awards, the Roselyn Schneider Eisner Prize, and the SFFILM Holbrooke Female Fund. Her work has been supported by Netflix, ITVS, SFFILM, BAVC, CAAM, UnionDocs, and Youth Speaks. Her films and projects have screened at Sundance Film Festival, the Museum of Modern Art, DOC NYC, SXSW, Mill Valley Film Festival, London Asian Film Festival, SF IndieFest, BAMPFA, and more.

Previously, Reaa was an assistant director on Mary Kom, the Netflix feature starring Priyanka Chopra, and served as showrunner of the VH1 India series Born Stylish. She was also Director of Photography and Editor for a Nike campaign celebrating Black History Month. She has led video teams at Wear Your Voice Magazine, Carbonated.TV, and Hearst Digital Media, and her photography has been featured in Vogue Magazine.

In 2017, she co-founded Breaktide Productions, a women-of-color–owned production company, which she helped grow through 2024, leading campaigns, films, and multi-partner impact projects in the U.S. and internationally.

Reaa earned her B.A. in Film and Media Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. She grew up between California, India, and Kuwait. When she is not working, you might find her collaging, meditating, or training toward her first full pull-up.

Say hello at info@reascendcreative.com