Paul Salisbury was born in Jena and is a Berlin-based screenwriter. After studying German language and literature in Leipzig and film in New York, he completed his training as a screenwriter for film and television at the dffb between 2007 and 2010 and has established himself  in the German TV and film landscape.

The feature script Herbert, based on Paul’s original screenplay Heavyweight, (dir. Thomas Stuber, Departures Film/MDR/HR/Arte, 2015) received nominations for the Deutscher Filmpreis as did Atlas (dir. David Nawrath, WDR/Arte, 2018) which was nomminated for Deutscher Filmpreis Best Script and Best Leading Actor and won the Emder Screenwriting Award and received nominations for the German Screenwriting Award and the Hessischer Filmpreis. Das Deutsche Kind (dir. Umut Dağ, NDR, 2019) received a Grimme-Preis nomination.

His further credits include Tatort – Schutzmaßnahmen (WDR, dir. Nina Vukovic, 2021), the ZDF/ORF thriller Im Schatten der Angst – Du sollst nicht lügen (Tivoli Film, 2022), and Ein Leben lang (WDR, dir. Till Endemann, 2022), nominated for the Deutscher Fernsehpreis for Best Television Film. His recent work includes two episodes of Der Barcelona Krimi (ARD Degeto, 2024, dir. Andreas Kleinert), the upcoming Tatort – Murot und das Gespenst (Hessischer Rundfunk, 2026, dir. Christoph Röhl) and the crime drama Skylla (2026, co-written with David Nawrath).