Soraya Simi is an award-winning independent filmmaker, published writer, and entrepreneur. Her strength lies in Directing, Producing, and Writing for film and television, with extensive experience in commercial work. Immediately graduating from USC Film School, Soraya embarked on her first feature documentary, ROW OF LIFE, which follows the story of Paralympian and Marine Veteran Angela Madsen and her harrowing solo row across the Pacific Ocean. ROW OF LIFE exemplifies the complexity of a close subject-director relationship, and how the stakes in non-fiction storytelling are not imagined, but very real. Soraya also runs a local membership-based organization in the Central Coast, 805 Film Collective, which offers events, jobs, and resources to the thriving local film community to help generate high-quality local film work. She is a published writer, with long-form essays in OUTSIDE magazine, The Sun, a plethora of surf and adventure publications, and is currently writing her first novel.