Welcome
Award-Winning Filmmaker
Melanie Gretchen is an independent filmmaker of the romance "Like a PowerPoint" and psychological thriller "The Back Garden."
ABOUT
Melanie Gretchen
Melanie Gretchen, based in New York, is executive producer, writer, and a lead actor in the office romance "Like a PowerPoint" and the psychological thriller "The Back Garden." Since it premiered in September 2022 at the Paris Independent Film Festival, "Like a PowerPoint" has won 24 awards for acting, directing, and composing. Her second short, "The Back Garden," premiered in the Art is Alive Film Festival in the fall of 2024 and has screened at the Below the Line Film Festival, the Triborough Film Festival, and the Big Apple Film Festival.
This spring, Alex Alessi's coming-of-age feature film "Homebody" that she was in, which featured Richard Kind, a Drama Desk Award winner and Tony nominee, debuted at the Garden State Film Festival. Recently, she finished shooting her next short film, "Offboarding," a dark comedy about dying with dignity, and losing that to tech support.
Originally from the Bay Area, Melanie went to school in the Philippines, Malta, and Switzerland. After earning her bachelor's degree in journalism and theater from the University of Denver, she studied acting with the Atlantic Theater Company and Karen Kohlhaas in New York. She is the 10th person ever to complete Karen's 20 Monologue Challenge, to perform 20 memorized pieces consecutively, in the 15 years that Karen has offered it. In addition, she is a Founding Supporter of the Tennessee Williams Rectory Museum in Clarksdale, Mississippi, where the playwright grew up, and plays softball throughout New York City.