Melanie La Rosa

Melanie La Rosa’s award-winning documentary on female-to-male transition, Sir: Just a Normal Guy, premiered in New York at the 2001 New Festival, and has screened at over 25 LGBT film festivals in major international cities, including Sydney, Melbourne, Vancouver, Toronto, Chicago, Washington DC, San Francisco, other US cities, and the first ever queer-arts festival in Zagreb Croatia. Sir: Just a Normal Guy is her first full-length documentary.

Melanie’s short fiction film Risk, starring Sonora Chase and Margarita Ventura, is her most recently released work. Risk was written, directed, and shot by Melanie. It premiered at the New York Lesbian Film Festival 2004, and has screened in San Francisco, Philadelphia, Austin, Washington DC, and Berlin.

Melanie also made a miniDV documentary Schuylkill Dragon, about a women's dragonboat team in Philadelphia and is working on a project called United States of Automobiles. She is also currently working on a documentary about the legendary poet Diane di Prima.

Prior to turning to filmmaking, Melanie worked with human and civil rights groups in the San Francisco Bay Area for ten years. She is a 2003 IFP/New York Project Involve Honoree and has worked in varying capacities with a number of independent documentary makers, including Dorothy Fadiman, Michelle Parkerson, and others.

Melanie has a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and is completing a Master of Fine Arts in Film and Media from Temple University. (03/05)

Sir: Just a Normal Guy
A film by Melanie La Rosa, 2001, 57 min., Color
Screened to acclaim at Gay & Lesbian Film Festivals worldwide and LBGT events across the nation, this candid and courageous portrait of more than 15-m...