Jessica Vale is an American documentary director, editor and musician residing in New York City. She was born in New Hope, PA to a German father and an American mother. Her first feature-length documentary release is Small Small Thing, which opened at The Quad Cinema in New York City on June 6, 2014. Small Small Thing is the story of Olivia Zinnah, a young Liberian girl who died from rape injuries at age 12. The film has won multiple festival awards for Best Documentary, including the 2014 Grand Jury Prize at Rated SR Film Festival in New York City. As a musician, she has released 2 studio albums. Her first single "Disco Libido" climbed the Billboard chart in 2005 and received press worldwide. Her second album "Brand New Disease" was released in 2007. The title track "Brand New Disease" charted for Billboard club play. Vale also co-wrote the soundtrack for Small Small Thing with composer Jean-Luc Sinclair.
Based out of New York City, Jessica Vale is a director, producer and musician. She has worked on video projects for artists such as Zodiac Mindwarp and The Love Reaction, The Four Horsemen and Francis Dunnery, and fashion designers Marc Jacobs and Tory Burch. Her first feature documentary Small Small Thing premiered in 2013 at the Dallas International Film Festival and Palm Beach International Film Festival. It is the tragic story of a 12-year-old Liberian girl named Olivia Zinnah, who comes from deep in the tribal bush. A rape at age 7 left her with a fistula and subsequent colostomy bag. Despite international media attention, the intervention of the UN and President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, she ultimately died of a bowel obstruction and septic shock in December 2012. Jessica Vale's music can be described as dark rock. She started Explicit Records with Ivan Evangelista on 2005 and released her debut album, "The Sex Album". The concept of the album is that except for Jessica's vocals, the instrumentation is all manipulated sex sounds. They engineered the sound with composer Jean-Luc Sinclair and the resulting product does not sound like sex at all but rather experimental electronic music. The album features the Billboard charting single "Disco Libido" Following "The Sex Album", Jessica released her second album, "Brand New Disease" on October 16, 2007, recorded entirely in Jessica's TriBeCa studio in NYC with a full band. Jessica also drew from her extensive travels for this record. Most notably, a trip to the former Yugoslavia inspired the song, "Night in Sarajevo", where the video was also recorded. The members of Vale's live band all previously played in glam-punk group The Act. "Brand New Disease", the single, also charted on as well as the DAC - German Alternative Charts.
