Melissa Eidson

Melissa (Eme) Eidson is an Adjunct Associate Professor and a documentary filmmaker. She currently teaches The Documentary Image, Literary and Critical Studies, and European Cinema and Media at Pratt Institute, Brooklyn campus, in New York City.

Her first documentary El Barrio, about life in the Tepito neighborhood of Mexico City, was screened at the Berlin & Cannes film festivals, and won Best Documentary and Founder’s Choice Award at the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival 2005. Her second documentary, No Son Invisibles: Maya Women and Microfinance was screened at Cannes, Torino, Roma, Guadalajara, Tehran, Seattle Latino, Del Rey Beach, and Dubai film festivals, and has been acquired by many university libraries, in the Ethnographic Collection of Alexander Street streaming video. Her 3rd documentary, Slow Fashion, is about cultural appropriation and sustainability in the fashion industry, and was filmed in Oaxaca, Mexico; Jaipur, India and Vientiane, Laos. It premiered at the International Human Rights Festival: this human world film, in Vienna, Austria December 2023 and won the Film Heals award at the Manhattan Film Festival July 2023 along with other awards: Impact Doc Awards: Award of Merit: Contemporary Issues / Awareness Raising; Accolade Global Film Competition: Award of Recognition, Liberation / Social Justice / Protest / Contemporary Issues / Awareness Raising; Green Academy Awards: Achievement award.

Slow Fashion documentary has been invited by the Mexican Secretary of Culture and IMCINE (Instituto Mexicano de Cinematografía ) to be presented at ORIGINAL 2023 in Mexico City November 13-19 2023 at the former presidential palace in Los Pinos, CDMX. Artisan weavers from many communities in Mexico will attend the screening and Q&A afterwards.

Her next documentary project, Metamorphosis, is currently in development.

SMU undergrad

BADA at Baliol College, Oxford University

MA: English Literature CUNY: Hunter College