Hot Shots 2023: Sarah Masiyiwa

Sarah Masiyiwa is a graduate of the New York Film Academy’s post-graduate course, with an infectious love of documentary. But the fact that she’s seen just about every doc in town is merely one part of the package for Sky Studios Factual head of development Jonathan Parker.

“As well as being a fanatical watcher of docs, with an encyclopaedic knowledge, Sarah combines e­ffortless natural talent with diligent hard work,” says Parker. “She’s amazing at drilling down into the detail of a story to find what really matters.”

Masiyiwa joined the Sky Studios Factual development team earlier this year, having previously been at Violet Films as production co-ordinator then development researcher. She has had a production co-ordinator role on Heart Of Invictus (Netflix), about Invictus Games contestants, while a short doc she made got into the DOC NYC Film Festival a few years ago.

Since joining the Sky unit, she has quickly made her mark, combining natural talent with a conscientious work ethic and an eye for the detail of factual storytelling. Masiyiwa has introduced a new technique for mapping out story beats for films in development, which has helped the team to find the shape of stories. She has also spotted several story ideas that have now made their way into further development.

Masiyiwa is currently working on her own documentary short film – for which she went filming in Uganda earlier this year.