Reina Bonta  is a queer Puerto Rican and Filipina American award-winning director and professional football player. Her latest short documentary, Maybe It’s Just the Rain, an Oscar-qualifying film, screened at Cannes Marché du Film and was selected for DOC NYC’s Academy Award Short List. She was an Archival Producer on Judy Blume Forever (Sundance 2023), an A-DOC 2025 Impact Producing Fellow, and her directorial debut, LAHI, secured national streaming distribution.

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Working across film, photography, and writing, Reina’s images have been featured in world-renowned publications including Forbes, her writing has been published by ESPN, and she has worked as a Brand Strategist for Nike. In parallel with her creative work, she is a professional footballer who has represented Santos FC in Brazil and the Philippines at the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023. She finds joy in telling transnational, diasporic, and queer stories, drawing on her background in elite sport to reveal the interior lives beneath athletic spectacle.