Director and filmmaker Melanie D’Andrea tells stories about those who dare to imagine and dream new possibilities; the outsiders, the revolutionaries, the off-beats and those who are before-their-time. With their poetic and magical realism style, D’Andrea blurs the lines between reality and fantasy in order to viscerally invoke the audience to the power within each of us.

Born in Venezuela and now based in Los Angeles, D’Andrea has directed on television, documentaries, commercials, music videos, and short series. They directed 4 episodes for NBCUniversal and Telemundo’s Vuelve a Mi, now on Peacock. Currently, they are working on a feature documentary about drag kings under their company, koh’lectiv.

Melanie is a NBCUniversal Launch and Telemundo Fellow, a Ryan Murphy Half Initiative Mentee and a two-time Directors Guild of America Award recipient for their films ‘South Arcadia St.’ and ‘STAND’. Their work has been featured on BET, Tribeca, The New Yorker, Billboard, attn:, and Refinery29.

They serve as the executive producer of ‘The Disruptors’, a live showcase of TV writers of color who are also either trans, nonbinary, disabled or undocumented.

Melanie live-produced the digital film showcase: Beyond Status , which highlights migrant storytellers who aim to construct new narratives about who they are as migrants in today’s political and personal contexts. They have also collaborated with The Center for Cultural Power on other digital live events such as the Climate Woke Summit, and the No Going Back: A Covid-19 Cultural Strategy Activation Guide (2020).

D’Andrea has started a substack that focuses on the arts-to-action cycle, and has served as an organizer for Street Dance Activism. They served as the Human Rights committee Chair for Young Entertainment Activists, where they also produced the Hollywood Climate Summit (2020).

Melanie completed her MFA at the University of Southern California in Film and Television Production.