Grounded in stunning imagery and intimate narratives, the works of Mexican-American filmmaker Rodrigo Reyes examine the contradictory and often violent nature of our shared world, using cinematic provocation to transcend the barriers between fact and fiction and render a poetic truth. 

Reyes has been supported by Sundance, Tribeca Film Institute, UnionDocs, BAVC Media, Guggenheim Fellowship, Creative Capital, Rainin Artist Fellowship, SF IndieFest Vanguard Award, Eureka Fellowship, Firelight Media William Greaves Fund, Borderlands Visionary Fellowship at ASU, DocX Lab at Duke University, Mellon Arts Fellowship at Stanford University, and MacDowell Colony, amongst others. 

Premiering at Tribeca Film Festival, his feature 499 grappled with the devastating legacy of the Spanish conquest in Mexico and has been described as "a truly brilliant accomplishment of unconventional storytelling" by film critic Carlos Aguilar, and “strong, beautiful and disturbing,” by director Jim Jarmusch. Set in the world of crimmigration and focused on the story of a friend sentenced to life without parole, Reyes’s latest film, Sansón and Me, was made in collaboration with acclaimed producer Su Kim, and supported by ITVS Open Call, Ford Foundation, Perspective Fund, California Humanities, International Documentary Association, and more. After winning the Best Film Award at Sheffield DocFest, the film was accredited for the Academy Award® and selected as the 2023 season-opener for the prestigious documentary series Independent Lens.

Reyes is currently pursuing new works that disrupt entrenched legacies of sexist violence in Mexico and challenge our understanding of the origin story of the United States.