Monica Medellin

Monica Medellin is a filmmaker dedicated to expanding narratives around women and people of color in sports through media, including ahead-of-the-trend film, TV, and branded content. Monica is the creator and executive producer of Surf Girls Hawai’i on Prime Video.

Since 2018, she has directed, produced, filmed and edited content for companies including Nike, The Olympics, Amazon, McDonald’s, Disney, Red Bull, Vans, Patagonia, Women’s Health, Togethxr, and Hello Sunshine, and for nonprofit organizations including the ACLU and Color of Change. Her work has also been featured by Elle Magazine, the Washington Post, Shondaland, LA Magazine, the Huffington Post, VICE, and during the first Women’s March on Washington in 2017.

The recent LA28 Olympics commercial she worked on is shortlisted for an AICP award for best existing footage, which includes underwater cinematography shot by Monica. Her 2021 film series Surf Girls: Kaikaina features five young native Hawaiian surfers on the cusp of their professional surfing careers, and includes Carissa Moore, who later that year became surfing’s first-ever Olympic Gold Medalist.

Her first film Water Warrior was featured by Shondaland and selected by the Los Angeles Latino International Film Festival, International Ocean Film Festival, Patagonia Film Festival and Save the Waves Film Festival.

Born and raised in Santa Monica, CA, Monica first began filming surf and skate videos on her family camcorder at a young age. In 2017, Monica co-founded a creative collective called The Gnar Gnar Honeys, who were on a mission to fill the gap of female representation in action sports content. The Gnar Gnar Honeys began organically as a group of friends shooting themselves skating and surfing on the weekends. It later evolved into a production company which Monica owned and operated, producing branded content for companies in the action sports space and establishing Monica as a leading female filmmaker of color in the action sports industry.

Monica has worked at the World Surf League, producing video content around professional surfers for its global audiences and, as a video producer at Define American, a non-profit media and culture organization named to Fast Company’s most innovative companies in the world for film and TV. Previously, she worked at the Los Angeles Times and Univision. She holds a degree in journalism from the University of Oregon. Monica is passionate about making the art of filmmaking more accessible to women and people of color. She has spoken about filmmaking and representation in sports at Google, USC, Chapman University, and Brentwood High School in Los Angeles.