DDA Guest Lecture Series Spring 2024: Melissa Ferrari 

Melissa Ferrari
April 3rd, 2024 
12.45 pm EST 

Melissa Ferrari is a nonfiction filmmaker, experimental animator, magic lanternist and educator who seeks to acquaint folklores of the past with contemporary culture. In exposing peripheral histories, she aims to unveil the wonder that lies in the shadow of nonfiction, rather than fiction.

Her practice engages with intersections of science and the supernatural, the mythification of pseudoscience, and the history of phantasmagoria and documentary. Originally from Virginia, Melissa is now based in Los Angeles where she received an Experimental Animation M.F.A. from CalArts.

Her films and magic lantern performances have been shown internationally in venues such as Hot Docs, Hauser & Wirth LA, Ottawa International Animation Festival, Ann Arbor Film Festival, and the Harvard History of Science Dept. In 2022-2023, Melissa was an Artist in Residence at the Camera Obscura Arts Lab in Santa Monica, CA and the Larry Spring Museum of Common Sense Physics in Fort Bragg, CA.

Recent awards include the 2023 Dick Balzer Award, the 2022 Damer E. Waddington Red

Cabbage Award, and the 2020 Science Sandbox Symbiosis Award at the Imagine Science Film Festival.

Melissa’s research focuses on the ethics and research methodologies of animated nonfiction. She presented her research on animated documentary at the Ecstatic Truth Symposium in Lisbon and several Society for Animation Studies conferences.

Melissa’s commissioned documentary animation work has appeared on PBS, the BBC, CNN & the Oscar Shortlist. Previously, Melissa worked as an animation artist at Dusty Studio in New York City, where her work was featured in The New York Times Op-Docs, The MoMA,

Nautilus, & TED.

https://www.melissaferrari.com/

This event is free and open to the public. RSVP here: https://forms.gle/qaMn3kB7rJ1VBcp97