M'Daya Meliani is an LA-based editor whose career spans over 20 years in television and documentary film.  Emmy-nominated for her work on the award-winning A&E docu-series Born This Way, her recent work includes Alexis Neophytides' and Andres 'Jay' Molina's feature documentary, Fire through Dry Grass, which premiered at the 2023 BlackStar Film Festival and received the jury award for Best Documentary. Fire Through Dry Grass aired on PBS’ POV series. She was also an editor on Leena Yadav’s documentary series: House of Secrets: the Burari Deaths (Netflix); documentary series: Sprint (Netflix); and Billy Luther’s short documentary, Kenji.  Previous work includes Billy Luther's short documentary, Red Lake, which was nominated for Best Short Documentary at the 2016 IDA Awards. 

M'Daya is a 2022 Karen Schmeer Film Editing Fellow, a 2019 Sundance Documentary Lab Contributing Editor, a proud member of Brown Girls Doc Mafia, and runs ACROSS THE CUT, an intersectional edit roster, with 3 fellow editors.

Born in Paris to an Algerian father and an American mother, life-long cross-cultural musings have informed her artistic path.  

M’Daya works in English and French.