Alameda, CA, USA
$600 - $1200 / Day
Melina Tupa is an award-winning Argentinean and Brazilian journalist and documentary filmmaker, specializing in human rights and Latino issues across the world. She started her career as a print reporter for Billiken magazine and Diagonal Newspaper in Argentina but soon moved onto visual journalism. She worked for five years as an associate TV producer, three of those years at Turner Broadcasting System. There she wrote and produced short news formats that aired during commercial breaks, in-between shows and were shared on social media in nearly every Latin American country. Melina holds a Bachelor in Journalism degree from the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina and a Master of Journalism degree from UC Berkeley, focusing on Documentary Filmmaking and Photojournalism. At the Berkeley J-School, Melina was awarded a TV/Documentary Merit Fellowship and the Carlos M. Castañeda Journalism Scholarship. Her documentary thesis The Search, told the story of Estela de Carlotto, the president of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, whose grandson was abducted during the Argentinean military dictatorship. The documentary is a Student Academy Award finalist, a recipient of the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) Excellence in Journalism Award for Student Special Project in addition to several other awards, and has been featured in different film festivals across the world. In her free time she enjoys playing the guitar, singing and taking 35mm photographs.
The Search is a 24-minute film that explores Estela de Carlotto’s search for her long-lost grandchild thirty-seven years after her daughter was kidnapped and murdered during the Argentinean “Dirty War.” The doc is currently a finalist at the Student Academy Awards. It has also won the Berkeley Film Foundation Student Grant and Susan Rasky Award for Journalistic Excellence.
This was published in Oakland North
I shot and edited this piece in one day for Oakland North.
Produced for UC Berkeley
This series was part of a larger book project project called "Boom! Gentrification in the Bay Area" which I published with 5 other photojournalists.
This photo essay was the cover feature for Real Eyes Magazine.
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