filmmaker // journalist // cinematographer
Rachel Lauren Mueller is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, journalist, and cinematographer. Her work combines investigative journalism with an anthropological approach to illuminate the hidden structures shaping power, belief, and identity. Rachel’s award-winning work has been featured in The New York Times, PBS, and Al Jazeera.
Her most recent film, They’re Here, co-directed with Laura Poitras, was selected for the 2026 Venice Film Festival. Her debut feature documentary currently in post-production, The Quiet Part, was the only film from the United States selected to pitch at the Geneva International Film Festival and Forum on Human Rights’ 2026 Impact Days. She is also a 2025 Film Independent Fellow.
Rachel Lauren Mueller creates immersive films that reveal how systems of power operate—and how people resist, adapt, and find meaning within them. Her work has examined abuse cover-ups in juvenile detention centers, white supremacist efforts to reshape small-town communities, the ICE occupation of the Twin Cities, the reimagining of religious rituals for queer people, and more.
Her reporting and filmmaking have been recognized with honors including the Dart Center Award for Excellence in Coverage of Trauma, the Reva and David Logan Prize for Investigative Reporting, and finalist recognition for a Livingston Award. She also serves as an organizer with the Video Consortium, helping cultivate a thriving nonfiction filmmaking community in the Twin Cities.
Supporters of Rachel Lauren Mueller's films include JustFilms | Ford Foundation, Film Independent, International Documentary Association, Rogovy Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board, UnionDocs, and IF/Then Shorts, among others. She holds a Master's of Journalism from the University of California, Berkeley. Originally from the Colorado mountains, Rachel now lives in Minneapolis, where she attempts, in vain, to get her wisteria to bloom.
