Film

Sara Newens

Initial PGF Award: Film Graduate Scholarship, 2010

Since receiving her B.S. in Mass Communication from Miami University of Ohio in 2001, Sara Newens has been involved in filmmaking and production for over a decade.  For nearly seven years, she worked as a freelance video editor for the CBS local news division in New York City.  While exploring her love of music and film in the Mississippi Delta in 2006, Sara directed her first documentary short, All This Blues, which has traveled to film festivals from Sarasota, Florida to Los Angeles.  In addition, she was an Assistant Producer for the PBS Independent Lens feature documentary New Year Baby, an award-wining film about a family’s survival of the Khmer Rouge genocide.  She is an Apple certified trainer and has worked as a teaching assistant and Post-Production Facilitator for The Edit Center and Barefoot Workshops.

Sara is currently an M.F.A. candidate in the Documentary Film and Video Program at Stanford University.  She has recently completed The Comfort of Cold, a film on cold-water ocean swimming, and Fireline, which delves into intensity of fighting wildfires in rural California.  In addition, she co-directed Top Spin with Mina T. Son, a short documentary about a young table tennis champion, which has recently been selected as a Regional Finalist for the 2010 Student Academy Awards, as well as a finalist for LUNAFEST and several other film festivals.   Most recently, Sara has been awarded a Princess Grace Foundation Award for her upcoming thesis work on Equine-Facilitated Psychotherapy.

website: http://art.stanford.edu/graduate/mfa-documentary-film/student-pr