YOU ARE HERE Epidsode #22: The Dirt Road That Turned a Corporate Executive Into a Filmmaker with Guest Melissa Davey
3 Things You'll Learn in This Episode
1. How a 22-year corporate career ended with a list written behind a closed office door. Melissa spent decades running a national division at a company she once called "a little icky," making good money and putting her kids through college. At 65, sitting at her desk, it hit her that she had no idea what came next, so she made a list: saxophone, a book, a podcast, and the one that stuck, making a movie. You'll hear exactly what pushed her to finally act on it.
2. How a dirt road, a Charity Buzz auction, and a three-second conversation with M. Night Shyamalan turned into her first film. Melissa didn't plan to become a filmmaker. She stumbled onto a movie set by accident, won a day of shadowing Shyamalan through an online charity auction, and left with one question ringing in her ears: "What do you really want to do?" That day set her on the path to Beyond 60, streaming since 2021 on eight platforms.
3. How she landed Alex Honnold's mother, and then Alex Honnold himself, in her second film. Melissa's current documentary follows Deirdre Wolownick, the oldest woman to climb El Capitan, who didn't take up climbing until her 60s. Melissa also convinced Deirdre's son, free solo climber Alex Honnold, to appear on camera, after being told he'd say no. The film has since picked up 18 festival selections and 11 awards, with distribution in progress.
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More about Melissa:
Website: www.melissadavey.com [http://www.melissadavey.com]
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-davey--16484b6/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/melissa-davey--16484b6/]
Email: melissajdavey@verizon.net [melissajdavey@verizon.net]
Melissa Davey, age 75, retired from a lengthy corporate career in 2016 to pursue her second act and dream of becoming a filmmaker.
Melissa began her early career in Legal Services pursuing Chapter 766 compliance and advocacy for disabled children. As a Paralegal, Melissa represented more than one thousand individuals before the Social Security Administration and was a national substantive law trainer for the Legal Services Corporation.
In 1994 Melissa was recruited to the for-profit company, Genex, headquartered in Wayne, PA, to build their Social Security advocacy program. As the Vice President of Social Security and Managed Disability for 22 years, Melissa sat on the company’s executive team and worked throughout the United States to bring services to the disability insurance marketplace.
At age 65, after a day on the set with a famous Director, she decided to take a risk and left her career to jump into the unknown.
Pursuing her dream of becoming a filmmaker became a reality in late 2018 when Melissa completed her first film, Beyond Sixty, a feature length documentary about women over the age of sixty. During 2019 Melissa’s film was accepted by and screened at 8 film festivals throughout the United States and Canada, winning awards and confirming that it is never too late to learn something new.
The film was picked up by a Distributor in late 2020 and had a Spring, 2021 release date. The film is currently available on most streaming platforms (Apple TV, Prime Video, Vimeo, Vudu, Google TV, YouTubeTV) including international airlines, library streaming as well as Cable OnDemand.
Melissa has completed her second documentary, Climbing into Life, the story of Dierdre Wolownick who is the mother of Alex Honnold (Free Solo). The film was accepted into eighteen film festivals, winning numerous awards. The film is set for distribution in the summer of 2026.
Melissa is currently working on her third film, a documentary about domestic violence for the Women’s Center of Montgomery County in PA.
