Spring 2025

C A R M E L M A G A Z I N E • S P R I N G 2 0 2 5 137 P addle Out,” the powerful documentary that premiered at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in February, starts with a breath and ends with a breath. Emmy-award winning filmmak- er Sebi Lee fulfilled a promise to Monterey native Melissa Pappageorgas to tell her story after Melissa’s passing from cystic fibrosis in 2018. Making the film presented logistical and emotional chal- lenges, which makes the cohesive, moving result all the more remarkable. After Melissa’s death at age 33, it took Lee a year and a half to have the fortitude to start reviewing the often-heartbreaking footage she had shot, along with combing through Melissa’s notes and iPhone videos with the support of Melissa’s parents, Lori and Chris Pappageorgas. “She left me all these breadcrumbs,” Lee explains. “I got to know Melissa intimately while shooting, and after her death, I got to know her better. She gave me the gift of being a storyteller and filmmaker. She made me a better person.” Courage, in the face of shockingly difficult health challenges is presented over and over again in “Paddle Out,” but Melissa insisted she not be por- trayed as inspiring. “She wanted to be recognized as a regular person,” Lee says. “People would look at her surfing with her oxygen tank and say,‘You’re so inspiring.’ It became a running joke. Melissa would say,‘There’s nothing extraordinary about it. I’m just trying to live my life as fully as possible.’” Lee first met Melissa when she was helping create a commercial featur- ing Melissa and the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula (CHOMP). After it wrapped, Melissa asked Lee for the footage to con- tribute to her own video project about living with cystic fibrosis.