Sara Terry

Sara Terry is a mid-career director whose work explores how we define our humanity and the role of community in helping us understand what our humanity looks like. Her first documentary, FAMBUL TOK (2011), about an unprecedented grass roots forgiveness program in Sierra Leone, was supported by Sundance and Chicken and Egg and won several awards at more than hundred festivals world-wide. It was included on Paste magazine’s list of 100 best documentaries of all time. FOLK, Terry’s second documentary, followed three singer-songwriters through the sub-culture of American folk music; the film enjoyed a successful niche film and music festival run, including DOC NYC, Nashville Film Festival and Bonnaroo Music Festival.

Terry is a member of the International Cinematographers Guild, and has worked as a story consultant/consulting producer/grant writer on more than a dozen documentaries, including Hao Wu’s PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF DESIRE (2018), Kimberly Reed’s DARK MONEY (2018), Michael Collins’ and Marty Syjuco’s ALMOST SUNRISE (2017), Nanfu Wang’s ONE CHILD NATION (2019), Johanna Demetrakas’ FEMINISTS: WHAT WERE THEY THINKING (2018), Lisa Hepner’s THE HUMAN TRIAL (in post) and Sandra Salas’s INTO THE STORM (in post). Terry is a Sundance Documentary Fellow, a Film Independent Independent Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow in Photography, a Logan Non-Fiction Fellow and a member of VII photo agency.

Her third documentary, A DECENT HOME, which she directed, filmed and produced premiered in Nov 2022. It is supported by Ford Foundation, IDA/Pare Lorentz Grant, Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, Perspective Fund, Cal Humanities, Rogovy Foundation, LEF Foundation, Film Independent Doc Labs, Only in New York/DOC NYC and several individual funders including Executive Producers James Costa and Thomas M.Neff.