NYWIFT Blog

By Farah Qureshi

Welcome to NYWIFT, Rachel Fleit!

Rachel is a writer, director, and producer known for her intimate, character-driven storytelling across documentary and narrative film and television. With a background in fashion and business, Rachel brings both creative sensitivity and an entrepreneurial mindset to her work, balancing artistic vision with thoughtful leadership.

Rachel directed the acclaimed documentary Introducing, Selma Blair and has helmed projects including Bama Rush and Sugar Babies, each reflecting her commitment to emotional honesty and layered storytelling.

Her latest award-winning documentary, The Slightest Touch—which follows the extraordinary friendship between Emma Fogarty, who lives with epidermolysis bullosa, and actor Colin Farrell—has been acquired by HBO Documentary Films and is slated to premiere later this year on HBO Max.

In our interview, she reflected on building trust with her subjects, navigating personal and cultural storytelling, and the creative directions she’s most excited to explore next.

NYWIFT Member Rachel Fleit

Welcome to NYWIFT! Could you give our readers a brief introduction to yourself?

My name is Rachel Fleit. I’m a writer, director, and producer drawn to intimate, character-driven storytelling, both narrative and documentary, film and TV. Much of my work explores identity and belonging and the ways people endure and transform.

What brought you to NYWIFT?

Community. Filmmaking can be deeply collaborative, but it can also feel isolating at times. I’m always seeking spaces where women are supporting one another creatively and professionally. NYWIFT represents a lineage of women carving out space in this industry for each other, and I’m proud to be part of that.

Rachel Fleit on set of the upcoming HBO documentary The Slightest Touch

What initially drew you to documentary filmmaking, and how did your background in fashion and business influence your approach as a filmmaker?

I’ve always been drawn to real people navigating complicated inner lives. Documentary allows me to sit inside those complexities without forcing easy answers.

My background in fashion and business shaped me in unexpected ways. Fashion taught me about image, presentation, and how we construct identity—which is central to so many of my films. Business taught me about leadership, negotiation, and how to build something from the ground up. As an independent filmmaker, I’ve found that [an] entrepreneurial mindset is super important.

Rachel Fleit on set of the upcoming HBO documentary The Slightest Touch

Your work—including Introducing, Selma Blair, Bama Rush, and Sugar Babies—often centers on deeply personal moments within larger cultural conversations. What guides you when deciding which stories to tell, and how do you balance public fascination with the responsibility of telling your subjects’ stories with care?

I’m drawn to stories where the personal and cultural collide and where someone’s lived experience reflects something bigger happening in the world. But I always start with the person. If I don’t feel genuine connection, curiosity, and respect for the person at the center, I won’t pursue the story.

Balancing public fascination with care comes down to intention. I’m not interested in spectacle or salaciousness. I’m interested in what’s happening underneath the hood of the car, in one’s psychic life and in allowing people to be complicated and human. That requires constant self-interrogation: Why am I filming this moment? Who does it serve? The subject always comes first.

How do you build trust and create space for vulnerability, especially when documenting sensitive or transformative experiences?

I think it’s time, listening and transparency. Trust is something you earn slowly. I spend a great deal of time off camera talking with my subjects and getting to know them before we start rolling. I’m interested in a collaboration, this is their story, and of course I am telling it, but it’s important to me that we link arms along the way, that they are clear about what the film is to me and what it isn’t.

And I try to show up consistently. When people feel seen and held, that’s when the truth, the vulnerability and the honesty is revealed.

Rachel Fleit on set of The Slightest Touch with Emma Fogarty and Colin Farrell

What does success look like to you at this stage in your career—creatively, personally, or professionally?

Success, for me, is alignment. It’s making work that feels emotionally honest, collaborating with people I respect, and building a sustainable creative life. Of course, distribution and reach matter to me but I am trying to tell important stories, both documentary and narrative, about a different way of being in the world and getting to what I like to call, the truth of the truth. If I get there, I feel successful.

Looking ahead, what kinds of stories or creative directions are you most excited to explore next?

I’m currently writing a narrative feature film and developing a documentary–narrative hybrid film about my own family that explores Jewish identity, inherited silence, and the weight of memory across generations.

More broadly, I’m drawn to stories about inheritance, silence, the body, and intergenerational experience. I’m interested in work that feels intimate and personal but resonates within larger cultural conversations. I’m excited to continue exploring films that hold emotional complexity.

Connect with Rachel Fleit on Instagram at @rachelfleit and stay tuned for her upcoming documentary, The Slightest Touch, premiering later this year on HBO Max.

(All images courtesy of Rachel Fleit)