PJ Raval

PJ Raval is a queer, first-generation Filipinx-American filmmaker whose work examines social justice issues through the voices of queer and marginalized subjects. Named one of Out Magazine‘s OUT 100, Raval’s body of film work has appeared on platforms including Netflix, PBS, and Showtime. Following three gay seniors in their golden years, his documentary, Before You Know It, was hailed by IndieWire as “a crucial new addition to the LGBT doc canon.” His film, Call Her Ganda, chronicles the events surrounding the murder of trans woman Jennifer Laude by a US marine in the Philippines. Ganda broadcast on POV (PBS) in 2019 and was nominated for a Philippines Academy Award for Best Documentary and anchored an impact campaign with over 150 community screenings including a closed-door meeting with the US State Department. Raval’s recent film, Who We Become, is a coming-of-age documentary following the lives of three young Filipino-American women in Texas during the COVID pandemic. The film is distributed by Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY Releasing and is currently streaming on Netflix.

An accomplished cinematographer, Raval shot the Academy Award–nominated documentary Trouble the Water and is a cofounder of the NEA-supported queer transmedia arts organization OUTsider. Raval serves on the steering committee of the Asian American Documentary Network (A–Doc) and is a Soros Justice Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow, a member of both the Producers Guild of America and the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences where he serves as the Asian Affinity Group Co–Chair.