Alexis “Alex” Anoruk Sallee is an Emmy nominated Inupiaq and Mexican film director and producer from Dgheyey Kaq’ (Anchorage), Alaska, with family ties to Kigiktaq (Shishmaref) and Sitnasuaq (Nome). As an Alaska Native and LGBTQIA2S+ storyteller, Alex creates bold, character-driven work centered on Indigenous perspectives and reclaims narrative space through film.
She earned a Bachelor of Science in Recording Arts from Full Sail University and is the founder and director of INUA Productions, a cinematic production company creating work through an Indigenous lens. Her practice is grounded in narrative sovereignty, addressing the historical reality that Indigenous and queer communities have often been portrayed through outsider perspectives, and is committed to ensuring these communities can tell their own stories with authenticity, agency, and complexity.
Alex’s directing work spans documentaries, commercials, and film projects exploring identity, culture, climate change, healing, and resilience. Her debut film Who We Are received the Grand Prize in the She Directed Filmmaker Contest out of 400+ submissions nationwide. Her film series Dear Kin centers Alaska Native LGBTQIA2S+ voices who write letters to past, present, and future kin. She also co-wrote and directed Celebrating Our Beauty for MTV Entertainment, featuring Alaska Native women with Indigenous tattoos and honoring the sacred process and cultural power of these markings. She was also commissioned by Alaska Airlines to direct the reveal film for Xáat Kwáani (Salmon People), the first aircraft in the history of any domestic airline to be named in an Alaska Native language and depict the ancestral importance through Northwest Coast formline art.
Her work has earned awards, festival recognition, and national attention for its distinctive storytelling perspective and commitment to authentic representation. Sallee’s work is focused on sharing high quality cinematic stories from an Indigenous perspective centering Indigeneity, queerness, and female strength.