Reid Davenport (MFA '16) has been named a 2026 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellow in Film-Video. The fellowship was announced April 15, 2026.
Davenport makes films about disability from an overtly political perspective. His first feature, I Didn't See You There (2022) — in which a circus tent outside his Oakland apartment prompts him to confront the legacy of the freak show — is shot entirely from his wheelchair, a formally radical first-person essay that won the Directing Award in U.S. Documentary at Sundance, the Full Frame Grand Jury Award, and the Independent Spirit Truer Than Fiction Award. His most recent film, Life After — about Elizabeth Bouvia's 1983 fight for the right to die — received the U.S. Documentary Special Jury Award at Sundance 2025.
Davenport is also a Creative Capital recipient, TED Fellow, and DOC NYC 40 Under 40 honoree. He teaches "Documenting Disability" at CUNY Hunter College.