Tracy Rector^us

Tracy Rector is a Seattle-based Emmy Award-winning artist, filmmaker, and community organizer dedicated to amplifying Indigenous and BIPOC creative voices. With three decades of experience spanning film, education, curation, and community building, her practice is rooted in a commitment to social justice and grounded in her relationship to plant medicine.

Rector has directed and produced over 400 films across formats including shorts, features, music videos, and virtual reality projects. Her work has been presented at Independent Lens, imagineNATIVE, Sundance, Cannes, and the Toronto International Film Festival. She is the founder of the 4th World Media, a community-centered media incubator now in its eleventh cohort season.

She has received the National Association for Media Literacy Education Award, the 2016 Stranger Genius Award, and the Horace Mann Award for her use of media as a tool for social justice. She is a Firelight Media Fellow, Sundance Institute Lab Fellow, and Tribeca All Access Grantee. In 2023, Forbes recognized her as one of the most influential media makers addressing the climate crisis in television and film.

Rector holds a BA in Native American Studies and Communications from Evergreen State College and an MA in Education from Antioch University Seattle. She serves on the boards of Working Films, Multitude Films, and BLIS Collective, and is a senior programmer at the Seattle International Film Festival.