Melody Gilbert

Melody Gilbert is an independent documentary filmmaker, and educator from Washington, D.C. now living in Natchitoches, Louisiana. She has directed, filmed, produced, and sometimes edited, seven independent feature-length documentaries since 2002. The Documentary Channel calls her "one of the most fearless filmmakers in contemporary documentary cinema." She is currently an assistant professor of journalism at Northwestern State University.

The films that Gilbert directs and films are noteworthy for featuring a rare intimacy with her subjects as she unearths previously hidden worlds. She works mostly solo with a small camera and wireless microphone and has the ability to get people to reveal their innermost thoughts, whether it's the family of a child who can't feel pain (''A Life Without Pain,'' 2005), people who want to be an amputee (''Whole,'' 2003), a former Vice President of the United States (''Fritz: The Walter Mondale Story'', 2008), or people who have full-fledged relationships with synthetic companions (''Silicone Soul'', 2018). All of her films have been made available on Netflix and iTunes and been in prestigious film festivals and broadcast internationally on networks in Germany, France, Finland, Denmark, and more.

Gilbert also serves as a producer and writer for other documentary projects she believes in, including ''Beneath the Ink'' (nominated for a 2019 national Emmy for Outstanding Short Documentary), ''Women Outward Bound'' (2016, PBS) and the James Beard award-winning ''The Starfish Throwers'' (2015). Most recently Gilbert was a producer/story consultant for ''Love Them First: Lessons from Lucy Laney Elementary'' (2019, KARE11-TV, national broadcast in October 2019). Provided by Wikipedia