Meissa Hampton is a writer and filmmaker focused on telling stories with positive social and cultural impact. Borrowing the name from her first book of poetry, she founded One Pair of Shoes Pictures, a company intent on promoting inspired contributors to filmmaking and drawing audiences with works that speak to our emotion, our intellect, and our era. She serves as the company’s managing director and is currently completing her feature documentary A Social Cure which documents the HIV/AIDS crisis in South Africa and the burgeoning potential of our technologically empowered social networks to effect positive change. She recently founded A Social Cure, Inc., a non-profit organization developing outreach programs for civic-minded media. She is an active member of New York Women in Film Television (NYWIFT) and the Screen Actors Guild (SAG-AFTRA) and a founding member of the Urban Artists Collective and the Indies Lab, NYC. She is a lauded independent film actor and has been repeatedly awarded for her performances by judges and audiences in national, international, commercial, and independent film festivals. She is a published poet and credited screenwriter. Her poetry has been awarded by the Academy of American Poets, and her studies were awarded scholarship under the Ford Colloquium.
Meissa founded The Actors Alliance, an organization that works to promote gender equity in the media industry. Her work has helped to protect the rights of women in media, promote inclusion and work toward equal opportunity and representation in film and television. She developed the website $#!% People Say to Actresses to expose discrimination and harassment in entertainment while providing performers a safe place to express themselves and build community. She authored a landmark petition to the performers union to address discrimination and harassment of its members. Her essays on equality in media have been published in major periodicals including The Guardian.