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. It exemplifies the complexity of a close subject-director relationship, and how the stakes in non-fiction storytelling are not imagined, but very real. ROW OF  LIFE is Executive Produced by Sue Bird and co-produced with TOGETHXR and TIME Studios and is released in early 2025. Her next project is a true crime docu-series about a wrongful conviction based in her hometown, Tucson, for which she is both a Co-Director and Executive Producer. It is Executive Produced by John Legend, co-produced with GET LIFTED, and currently in production. 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, surf and adventure publications, and currently writing her first novel.