Dr. Rachel Raimist is a filmmaker who most enjoys documentary storytelling, but has also worked extensively in narrative fiction filmmaking, music videos, and live event videography.  Her primary research interests are in the study of women in film, feminist filmmaking, hip-hop feminisms, and digital storytelling.

She is the director of Nobody Knows My Name, the first documentary about women in hip hop, co-editor of Home Girls Make Some Noise!: Hip Hop Feminism Anthology, and is one of the founding curators of B-Girl Be: A Celebration of Women in Hip-Hop at Intermedia Arts in Minneapolis, MN.  Raimist’s award-winning films have screened at festivals such as South By Southwest, Los Angeles Independent Film Festival, San Jose Cinequest and Women in the Director’s Chair, and on international television outlets.

She was born and raised in the quiet, upstate New York town of Middletown, to a Puerto Rican mother and a father of Russian Jewish descent.  She earned her B.A. in Film and Television at The UCLA School of Theater, Film & Television and continued on to earn her M.F.A. in Film Production/Directing. She spent several years working in the independent documentary scene, big budget narrative features, commercials, music videos, print magazines, a clothing company and even in music marketing and promotions. After all those years working in the industry, she needed to decompress and understand, so she moved to Minnesota to pursue a Ph.D. in Feminist Studies in the Department of Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies.  Upon graduation, the department named the computer lab that she conceived and built in the department, The Rachel Raimist Feminist Media Center.

Currently, she is an Assistant Professor of media production in the Department of Telecommunication and Film at the University of Alabama, where she teaches Advanced Videography, Digital Storytelling, Senior Capstone Media Production Workshop, and Producing & Directing Music Videos.

Her most recent research and creative projects keep her very busy. She is most recently:

* Contributing co-editor of Fresh, Bold and So Def: Women in Hip Hop Changing the Game with Martha Diaz, founder of the Hip Hop Association, and Dr. Irma McClaurin

* Co-authoring Speaking the Lower Frequencies 2.0: race, literacy and learning in the digital age with Dr. Walter R. Jacobs III and Candance Doerr-Stevens

* Editing two social justice documentary projects that work in resistance to the school-to-prison pipeline

Visit her faculty homepage at: http://www.tcf.ua.edu/faculty/rachel-raimist/