Daresha Kyi

Daresha Kyi is an Emmy award winning director who also writes and produces films and television programming in Spanish and English. A graduate of NYU Film School, she creates narratives and documentaries. Mama Bears is her second feature documentary about how conservative, Christian mothers are transformed when they decide to accept their LGBTQ children.

In 2018 she was commissioned by the ACLU to direct Trans In America: Texas Strong, which garnered over 3.5 million views online, screened at SXSW, and won two Webby Awards and an Emmy for “Outstanding Short Documentary.” Texas Strong is a stand-alone short that also serves as a proof of concept for Mama Bears.

In 2017 she co-directed and produced Chavela, a multiple award-winning documentary about iconic singer Chavela Vargas that was distributed by Music Box Pictures and screened in over 40 countries, including Translyvania and was ranked as the number 1 Latin American documentary of the decade by Cine Arte magazine. Chavela won numerous best documentary and audience awards across the world.

In 2015 Daresha produced Kristina Wong’s How Not to Pick Up Asian Women. In 2014 she served as EP of Emmy-winning writer Kevin Avery’s satirical take on The Wiz starring an all-white cast called The Whizz and in 2011 she produced his short comedy, Thugs, The Musical.

In1992 Daresha won a full fellowship from Tri-Star Pictures to attend the directors’ program at the AFI Conservatory based on her short, award-winning narrative, Land Where My Fathers Died, co-starring Isaiah Washington. She wrote, directed and produced her first, award winning drama, The Thinnest Line, as a student at NYU.

Her films have been funded by ITVS, NEA, NYSCA, NYFA, the Jerome Foundation, BPM (as NBPC), and many other foundations and have screened at more than 40 festivals nationally and internationally including the Berlinale. She was a fellow in the A Blade of Grass, Firelight Media Documentary Lab, Chicken & Egg Eggcelerator Lab, NY Film Artists Academy and Creative Capital cohorts.

Daresha has produced programming for FX, WE, AMC, Telemundo, and FUSE, among other networks.