bio
Originally from the East Bay Area, Zoë Alyce Salnave has worked in film and creative writing since she was 14 years old. Her passion for producing narratives rooted in issues of community, sustainability, and urban life were born from her interests in the portrayal of diversity and youth in film/television, and her desire to spin a more positive narrative in media. Her work has screened at film festivals across the world and she holds several awards for her documentary work with urban development, community gardening programs, and youth initiatives in the Bay Area.
In 2010, Salnave won her highest recognition by receiving a Resolution Award from the State of California by Senators Loni Hancock and
Nancy Skinner for her work in documentary filmmaking and was honored with a private screening for the Obama family at the White House later that year. In 2015 she graduated from Mills College, a historic all women's college in Oakland with a B.A. in Creative Storytelling and Cultural Perspectives with an emphasis in Contemporary Poetry, Cinema Literacy, and Afro-Caribbean Cultural Studies.
Besides her work in film, Salnave has worked with youth in professional development internships and video production houses with programming
geared towards high school aged students. Her work with students in professional development was often with at risk youth in Oakland and San Francisco through the Sweeney Camp and Youth Radio programs based in the Bay Area. She has also worked with young artists
development and education through Girls, Inc., the Yerba Buena Arts Center of San Francisco, and the Bay Area Video Coalition teaching a
culmination of video production, studio photography, graphic design, and broadcast journalism. She was also instrumental to the expansion of the Bay Area based program Camp Reel Stories to the Los Angeles area - an intensive filmmaking program geared towards young budding female creatives.
She earned her MFA in Film and Television Production from the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts in 2019 and has since been working as a Director, Writer, and Producer predominantly in Los Angeles and the Bay Area. She has worked in Television Development under Brian Grazer at IMAGINE Entertainment in LA, Produced the 3rd Season of SHOWTIME's docu-series Couples Therapy in New York, and current directs documentaries, as well as commercial and marketing videos as a Creative Director at Glass & Marker, a production studio located in Oakland, CA.
In her narrative work, Salnave employs her documentarian eye while exploring the genres of drama, comedy, and the combination of the two while telling stories from underrepresented perspectives and communities. Zoë is dedicated to storytelling that is diverse, inclusive, and progressive, using her experience and education surrounding cultural studies and poetic storytelling. She is invested in showcasing people in real-life situations that reflect the nuance and complexity of our world while combining the timelessness of comedy and real-stakes drama through a diverse lens with strong female characters at the center.
resume, cv, and links to protected work available by request.