Melissa Parry has worked in the film industry as a freelance editor since 2005. She works on feature films, documentaries, wildlife, artist’s films and series, such as Netflix’s first African Original Queen Sono (2020), Classified (2023) for Amazon USA and documentary series Senzo: Murder of a Soccer Star (2022) and Tracking Thabo Bester (2024) Showmax’s most-watched title across all genres. In 2010 Melissa’s creative work as an editor was recognised by peers with the awarding of the South African Guild of Editors (SAGE) acronym. She was nominated for the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative (2012) and has won multiple international awards for her work on the wildlife films Birth of a Pride (2019) and Okavango: River of Dreams (2020). Melissa has also worked with South African artists Gabrielle Goliath, Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi, Mohau Modisakeng, Nandipha Mntambo and William Kentridge to create artist films exhibited across the world. Including La Biennale di Venezia, Stranieri Ovunque (2024), Birmingham 2022 Festival running parallel to the Commonwealth Games (2022) and The South African Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia (2017). In 2013 Melissa enrolled and completed a part-time master’s in History of Art at the University of the Witwatersrand where she used film as a research tool to investigate the biographies of a selection of objects in the Standard Bank African Art Collection. This led to an invitation from the Wits Art Museum (WAM) for Melissa to write a chapter titled Moving images, moving perceptions: An interrogation of the use of film as a productive art history tool for the book Seen, Heard and Valued: WAM celebrates 40 Years of the Standard Bank African Art Collection (2021). And the exhibition of the same name celebrating the WAM’s Standard Bank African Art Collection included an excerpt from her masters film Johannes Maswanganyi (2016). In 2022 Melissa was welcomed by the American Cinema Editors (ACE) as an International Partner member and participated as a panelist in the ACE EditFest Global 2022 panel Editing for the World, as well as, the Global Editing Perspectives podcast released in early 2025.
