Melody London

Film Industry Role: Editor
Major Works: “Down by Law”, “Stranger Than Paradise”;
Major Awards and Nominations: The first film Melody edited, “Stranger Than Paradise” won many international awards;

Melody London is a renowned Film Editor of internationally awarded fiction and non-fiction feature films. The first feature film she edited, Stranger Than Paradise, achieved international acclaim, including Cannes Film Festival’s Palme D’or, of Best First Feature Film. It is considered a seminal film, in terms of demonstrating the financial viability of Independent Films, which profoundly changed the landscape of independent filmmaking. Her most recent credits are Rear View Mirrors, a feature film, and The Jinx, an HBO crime-docu series. In 2017, she edited Heart of a Dog, directed by Laurie Anderson with whom she has collaborated since the 1980’s. In 2016, she edited and co-produced Laura Poitras’, Risk about Julian Assange, which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. 

Melody graduated with an MFA from the renowned New York University School of Film and Television the same year as Spike Lee. She has taught film at NYU, CalArts, Hunter College, and as a guest lecturer in Talinn Estonia, and at Lusofona University in Lisbon, Portugal. 

As a director, her most recent project is A Woman Has, A Woman Hasn’t a feature length documentary about under recognized women artists associated with the Beats. Melody studied painting and drawing for her BA from Bennington College and recently created four video projections for a theater piece at the famed LaMama theater in NYC. Melody has also worked with many experimental artists including David Byrne, Richard Hell, Peter Sellars, the Wooster Group, and Richard Foreman. Her many editing awards include the Sundance Audience Trophy for Angela, directed by Rebecca Miller, and the Sundance Waldo Scott Award for Joe the King, Directed by Frank Whaley.