Melina Matsoukas is a woman with the midas touch; every video she touches turns into gold.
The innovative and creative genius has a knack for telling powerful messages and sending strong messages through music videos. Most notable of all her works is Beyonce’s Formation which stirred up conversations about politics, art and history around the world.
Melina has also given “delirious Pop Art rubbed with jerk in Rihanna’s “Rude Boy” and romance suffused with eye-watering tenderness in Calvin Harris’s “We Found Love” starring Rihanna. She has also worked with Lady Gaga and she is the Executive Producer of Issa Rae’s HBO comedy about being black, female and in Los Angeles, ‘Insecure’. Melina directed half of the first eight episodes of the show.
Talking about her journey into filmaking, Melina says she got into the profession to change the world; to really make the voices that we don’t get to hear heard, and the images and the stories that we don’t get to see seen. She was able to achieve this with Beyonce’s Formation.
In her words, “I had no idea that it would have that reaction and initiate those kinds of conversations. That was very satisfying as an artist to be a part of that. I feel like there’s been a lot of racial injustice in our community, and we’re hungry for somebody to say something and for somebody as strong as Beyoncé to say something and show value to people of color.”
