SARA NEWENS is an award-winning director, producer, and editor whose work spans feature documentaries, docuseries, and narrative films and has earned recognition at top international festivals worldwide including Sundance, IDFA, SXSW and Telluride Film Festivals.
She gained significant recognition as an editor, earning a 2023 Primetime Emmy nomination for her work on Pretty Baby: Brooke Shields (Hulu), which premiered at Sundance and won the Cinema Eye Honors award for Best Broadcast Editing. She was previously nominated for her contributions to Allen v. Farrow (HBO), which received seven Emmy nods, and garnered nominations from both the Cinema Eye Honors and the American Cinema Editors (ACE) Eddie Awards.
As a director, Sara most recently co-directed Racist Trees with Mina T. Son, a documentary that investigates a racially charged community dispute in Palm Springs and was acquired by PBS’s Independent Lens. Her directorial debut, Top Spin, followed three young table tennis players on their journey to the Olympics and was released theatrically to great acclaim after premiering at DOC NYC. She also directed Footprint: Where the Towers Stood, a New York Times Op-Docs short offering a poetic reflection on Ground Zero’s transformation.
Most recently, she edited Marlee Matlin: Not Alone Anymore, which premiered at Sundance 2025, and co-edited The White House Effect, an upcoming documentary exploring climate change policy history.
A graduate of Stanford University’s MFA Documentary Film Program, Sara continues to create original films through her production company Wild Pair Films, and is dedicated to supporting mentorship opportunities for emerging talent through the Karen Schmeer Film Editing Fellowship and Film Independent’s Documentary Lab.