BIO

Rachel Mason is a Los Angeles based filmmaker. She received an Emmy nomination for the Netflix original documentary Circus of Books, her biographical portrait of growing up as the child of the owners of a legendary adult bookstore that served as a cornerstone of the gay community during the height of the AIDS crisis. In 2025, Mason directed the HBO Max series An Update on Our Family, which has since been cited in legal arguments advocating for changes to legislation concerning children on the internet. That same year, Hulu released the authorized documentary she directed about the death of her friend Halyna Hutchins on the set of Rust entitled, Last Take: Rust and the Story of Halyna.  Mason recently completed My Brother’s Killer,  about the 1990 murder of a young gay man which remained cold for 33 years until the film helped catalyze the solving of the murder. Made entirely independently through a volunteer-driven community, it will premiere at the 2026 SXSW Film Festival in the Documentary Spotlight section.