Director

DOCUMENTARY

Project type: Nonfiction Series
Project status: Production
Filmmakers: Soraya Simi (Co-Director & Exec Producer), Owen Dubeck (Co-Director & Exec Producer)
Production Companies: Agua Caliente, GET LIFTED, SCOUT, and Universal Television Alternative Studios
Executive Producer: John Legend

Logline: In 1992, Martín Soto-Fong, a 17-year-old son of immigrants with no criminal record, was charged with a triple murder, beginning a decades-long saga involving a perjurious prosecutor and a corrupt police department. 30+ years later, his fiancé, daughter, and lawyer have never stopped searching for the evidence that can prove Martín’s innocence.

Materials (deck & sizzle) available upon request.

Twenty students sailing a Brigantine for 40 days in the Caribbean Sea to study climate change and colonialism, but find themselves experiencing profound personal transformations. - 22 min, 2019.

Bert Rogers, one of the most accomplished and acclaimed Tall Ship captains, was once just a boy from Iowa until sailing changed his life. He wrote copious letters about life at sea. A week after his sudden passing, his wife, Dona, uncovers his letters. Together, Dona and her son James explore their contents, process their grief, and channel it into realizing Bert’s unsung mission. 7 min, 2019.

COMMERCIAL

Client: EFORMS
Writer & Director: SORAYA SIMI
Four 30 second YouTube ads - each over 1 million views.

Project type: Nonfiction Feature
Project status: Distribution
Filmmakers: Soraya Simi (Director & Producer), Nicholas Weissman (Producer)
Production Companies: Vacationland, TIME Studios, Togethxr
Executive Producer: Sue Bird

LOGLINE: One woman’s irrepressible ambition to defy all odds led her to the Marines, multiple Paralympics, and fourteen world records. Angela Madsen inspired millions, and at 60, chooses to embark on the most ambitious journey of all: to become the first paraplegic and oldest woman to row the impossibly vast Pacific Ocean alone.

Director’s Statement: A month after I graduated from USC's film school, Angela Madsen sent me a cold DM on Facebook asking if I might "make a little video" about her solo ocean row after she'd seen a sailing documentary I'd made. I didn't know what that meant, but soon after meeting her, I was hooked. Angela's warm personality, contagious sense of humor, and eccentricity were irresistible. She was a character unlike any other, and with a shared passion for the ocean and extreme sports, we became fast friends.

Angela and I worked closely together for a year leading up to her launch. We bootstrapped the entire production, and I called in every favor and friend I had from film school. Eventually, a dramatic change in fate would flip everything on its head halfway through Angela's row, altering the course of this story and the lives Angela affected irreversibly.

After five years of learning to lose any expectations of the story I thought I was telling, I learned instead to let this one come to me -- which just so happened to be five years and 4,000 miles farther than I could ever imagine it going. As grief, uncertainty, and a historically challenging film economy underscored this effort, it is no small triumph to complete this independent film, and more importantly, hold true to a promise I made to Angela to tell her story no matter the cost, made all the more profound by its unexpected twists and turns.

Website / Contact

Pro surfer Otto Flores and project manager Jorge Quintana implement a 100-gallon cistern for a local church in Puerto Rico, four months after devastating hurricanes Irma and Maria. 5 min - 2018.

Salt water heals everything.
Student thesis film from USC. 3 min, 2017.