J.D. DiSalvatore

Born in Plymouth, Massachusetts, J.D. DiSalvatore and her family moved to Miami when she was a young girl. She finished high school there, then went to Boston University and graduated with a degree in communications and a love of film. She was drawn to Los Angeles where she supervised the graduate film production program at AFI, then began to work as a visual effects artist on movies like "Dante's Peak" (1998) and "The X-Files" (1997). She began establish herself as a teller of LGBTQ stories, first producing a few short films, then as the manager of Outfest in Los Angeles in 1999 and 2000. The first feature length film she produced was the romantic comedy "Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds" (2006). The next year saw the distribution of "Shelter" (2007), produced by DiSalvatore, which won the Outstanding Film - Limited Release award at the 2009 GLAAD Awards. The film was named the number one film on Logo's list of 100 Greatest Gay Movies of All Time in 2012. She continued to produce films, including "A Marine Story" (2010) and "Elena Undone" (2010). DiSalvatore was also an animal rights activist and was finishing a documentary called "How to Save a Dog" when she succumbed to cancer in 2017.