Melina León

• Born — 1977 • Birthplace — Lima, Peru • Occupation — Film director, screenwriter • Years Active — 2000-present Melina León (born 1977) is a Peruvian filmmaker.

Melina León was born in Lima in 1977, to Ismael León Arias, a renowned journalist and one of the founders of the newspaper La República, who helped expose a child trafficking network that illegally sent children abroad in the 1980s. She studied communications at the University of Lima and completed a master's degree in Film Directing at Columbia University, which she was able to finish thanks to a three-year scholarship funded by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association (HFPA).

León directed her first short film A 45 for the Month's Expenses (2000), which won the Best Short Film award from Conacine (now DAFO, part of the Ministry of Culture) and was selected for the Tampere Film Festival in 2002. Her short film, Lili’s Paradise (2009), premiered at the 47th New York Film Festival and has won 11 awards, including Best Latin-American Film at the São Paulo International Short Film Festival. León's critically acclaimed directorial debut, Song Without a Name, premiered at the Directors' Fortnight during the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, making her the first Peruvian director to be selected by the festival.

• Year — Title — Notes — Ref. • 2000 — A 45 for the Month's Expenses — Short film • 2007 — Girl with a Walkman — Short film • 2009 — Lili's Paradise — Short film • 2019 — Song Without a Name