Sarah Cahlan

Sarah Cahlan is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and journalist currently producing shorts for the Washington Post. At the Post, Sarah pitched and produced a new animated mini-series about online misinformation, investigated the perpetuators of the 2019 Amazon fires, tallied multiple false claims from politicians on both sides of the aisle, and was instrumental in bringing The Webby award-winning Guide to Manipulated Video to life. Prior to the Post, Sarah directed TheirStory, while at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Weaving archival footage, interviews, wry humor and stop-motion animation, the film presented what we got wrong about gender in the past. The film was shortlisted for a BAFTA, premiered at the Mill Valley Film Festival, and is still showing at festivals and universities across the U.S (now digital). Summer 2018, Sarah was an NBC and NAHJ News fellow where she wrote stories and produced videos about anything from bright quasars to dino pets for NBC MACH and developed the multimedia Hispanic Heritage piece for NBC Latino. She’s also worked on HBO films and Emmy award-winning documentaries and produced videos while living in Bhutan. Sarah studied archaeology and environmental studies at George Washington University, which led to her first video job — filming for National Geographic her archaeology professor at his dig in Israel. True to these roots, she loves making fact-driven, wonky, and investigative stories into gripping long and short-form docs.