Bhavana Goparaju

filmmaker

Biography

Bhavana Goparaju is a Minneapolis-based filmmaker, data strategist, and founder of Jeevi Films—a US–India production company amplifying underrepresented stories through global cinema and community-rooted distribution models. Her films have premiered at Berlinale, Busan, Cartagena, Adelaide and CAAMFest, and toured universities such as Harvard, Columbia, Brandeis, Yale and York to name a few. They have been theatrically distributed in India through PVR Cinemas, streamed on platforms like Netflix USA, MUBI, Movie Saints, and Nee Stream and on international airlines. Her projects have been supported by leading international development platforms including the Busan Asian Cinema Fund, HAF, NFDC WIP Lab, Tallinn’s Script Pool & WIP, Film Bazaar, Le Groupe Ouest’s LIM Lab, and were finalists for the Sundance Development Track.

With a background in data science and community organizing, Bhavana is building a tech-enabled, community-based nodal network to decentralize independent film distribution and cultivate sustainable, place-based audiences. She develops frameworks for creative sustainability through Jeevi’s Catalyst Collective and Cross-Cultural Bridge Program, which incubate underrepresented filmmakers and foster trans-local collaboration between South Asian, Indigenous, and global majority artists. Her workshops explore how caste, class, race, gender, and global capitalism shape creative labor—and how artists can build equitable, intersectional ecosystems in response. She brings a systems-level approach to creative work that weaves grassroots wisdom with global strategy.

Speaking & Teaching Engagements:

  • Panelist, Building Creative Sustainability Locally, Minneapolis Creative Sustainability Summit (Seed & Spark with Film North)

  • Guest Lecturer, University of Minnesota & St. Olaf College – Intersectionality of Caste, Class, Gender, and Global Capitalism

  • Workshop Facilitator, A Body of Many Lands: Queer Histories and the Politics of Belonging

  • Producer Mentor – Film Spark Fellowship, MSP

  • Panelist, Documentary Storytelling Across Borders, Black European Film Festival at the Main Cinema