It wasn’t until her study abroad as an undergraduate student that Professor Melanie La Rosa’s life was changed.

La Rosa, a filmmaker, producer, and media professor at Pace University, attended the University of Michigan as an undergraduate student and graduated with a Political Science degree. However, when it was time to choose an internship, La Rosa chose one in Costa Rica, where she would have to make a video in a coastal town. It changed her life from then on.

“[I used] a very old VHS camera. It’s what you got on an internship in Costa Rica and I made a documentary on ecotourism because it was a coastal town where there was a lot of surfing and new hotels being built,” La Rosa said. “It was very rural and there was an influx of people coming for Eco-tourist hotels. So, they were going through a lot of changes.”

This project became an inspiration for La Rosa to create more films. After she graduated, she moved to San Francisco to work at human and civil rights organizations, such as the American Civil Liberties Union and a Native American empowerment organization.

Around the time she was working at these organizations, one of her friends was in the midst of a gender transition from female to male. To La Rosa, this was the perfect opportunity to make a serious documentary for the world to see and so she created the film, “Sir: Just a Normal Guy.”

The young producer began to film her friend, Jay Snider, and his transition process by herself. Although La Rosa admitted that she wasn’t fully equipped when it came to the audio aspect of filmmaking at the time, this documentary caught the attention of many around the world.

“I had a cut [of the documentary] and I sent it to the New York Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and they premiered it,” La Rosa said. “I sent it to a lot of festivals but I got it into the New York one. I was super excited and then I started getting invitations from other film festivals around the country and there were a bunch of international ones, like Australia and Canada.”

At that point, La Rosa knew that film school at Temple University was the next step in her life. There, she became more advanced at making films and created the documentary she is most proud of “The Poetry Deal: A Film with Diane di Prima.”

di Prima was a prominent writer of the beat generation, an era where writers challenged literary norms. La Rosa was fascinated with di Prima and even read her autobiography twice.

“One of the fun things to do with a documentary is that you can randomly introduce yourself to people and say, ‘Can I make a film about you?” Amazingly, in this case, [di Prima] said yes,” La Rosa said.

The documentary took seven years to complete.

“[di Prima] wasn’t the easiest person to work with,” La Rosa said. “But she’s kind of a revolutionary. The things you love about them are also the things that frustrate you. She just didn’t operate on a very normal person schedule. So it just took a long time for me to get all of the footage and also to get the money.”

Once it was complete, the documentary was shown at 13 different screenings around the country. Not only was this one of her most successful films, but it was an experience that has taught La Rosa about the most valuable concepts of filmmaking: raising money and finding time.

“Because I didn’t know so much about the technology when I made my first film, I became a little obsessed when I learned everything,” the media professor said. “Now I know I can just go out and shoot, edit, and make a film. But, for me, it’s just finding time now. It takes a lot of time.”

La Rosa is currently working on a new film, “How to Power a City,” which is about renewable energy in New York City and New Jersey. She hopes that her new film will be completed in one year. In the meantime, she continues to teach at Pace and advise its film club, Film Appreciation Program of Pace.