Gustavo Rosa was born in Tubarão, Brazil, and raised in Boston. He is a writer, director and producer. His family immigrated to the United States when he was 12 years old. He earned an MFA in filmmaking from Columbia University in 2016.
His films and collaborations have played major festivals, including Berlin, Sundance, SXSW, Karlovy Vary, Santa Barbara and Shanghai. In 2014, he was the associate producer of “That Film About Money” Parts 1 and 2, segments in the Webby-Award winning "We the Economy" omnibus film.
In 2016, he was the associate producer of "Indignation," based on the novel by Philip Roth and adapted and directed by James Schamus. Between 2016 and 2018, he was a production coordinator at Symbolic Exchange, James Schamus’ production company. While there, he worked on a number of feature films, including Kitty Green's "Casting JonBenet" (Netflix Original) and "A Prayer Before Dawn" (A24, Cannes World Premiere).
In 2018, his short film "Carro" premiered at the SXSW Film Festival and was licensed to HBO for distribution after playing more than 80 festivals around the world, winning a number of awards. In 2020, he produced a feature-length dark-comedy set in Lima, Peru titled "The Restoration," which deals with issues of rapid urbanization. The film was the winner of a DAFO award, Peru’s most prestigious film grant. "The Restoration" had its world premiere at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in 2020 and played over 20 festivals across the world.
In 2025, he produced "So Far All Good," a micro-budget feature that premiere in the 2025 Tribeca International Film Festival. He is currently the executive producer on a number of shorts and features, including Pınar Yorgancıoğlu’s "Those Who Whistle in the Dark," a Turkish-German-Bulgarian co-production that participated in the Biennale College Cinema in Venice. Aside from being a filmmaker, he is an accomplished film educator – films from his students have domestic and international festivals and won two Director’s Guild of America awards.
