Sana A. Malik is an Emmy-nominated director and creative producer with a background in global impact storytelling, known for leading bold, award-winning work across documentary, journalism, narrative and branded content.

Sana’s directorial credits include GUANAJUATO NORTE, winner of a student BAFTA award and acquired by the New Yorker Documentaries and AWAY, TOGETHER (writer-director), a visceral, scripted outdoor film grounded in emotion (winner SIFF, Reel Asian) and Season 12 of Art 21 for PBS.

As an owner and filmmaker at Meerkat Media Co-operative, an award-winning production company, she leads creative strategy and high-impact productions for NIKE, AG1, SFMoMA as well as foundations and global NGOs. Her campaigns and films have been recognized by SIMA, the Emmys, and supported by fellowships like The North Face’s Move Mountains initiative. She was an executive producer and director of the Emmy-nominated Sesame Street Racial Justice Initiative series, featuring real families talking about race in their homes. She directed Nike NYC’s Community Champs reels and creative produced Nike Journal’s “Eyekonz,” a short doc about an all-female Lacrosse team in Philadelphia. Sana was a 2023 finalist in the Commercial Director’s Diversity Program where she was mentored by award-winning agencies and production companies including SMUGGLER and Arts&Sciences—deepening her expertise in translating brand vision into powerful visual storytelling.

Previously, she worked as a journalist and produced episodic series for BBC Reel, Frontline PBS, HBO and MTV. She’s been featured in i-D magazine, Buzzfeed News, the New Yorker and the CBC. As a director focused on empathetic collaboration, she brings real-life stories to the screen with ease and emotion. Sana started her career leading public health communications campaigns internationally and found her way to her true calling as a filmmaker. She still feels her particularly global P.O.V. was honed consuming an absurd mash-up of visual content in her early life spent between London, UK, Lahore, Pakistan and Cape Breton, Canada.

Sana has a Masters in Documentary Film from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism, and degrees from the University of London (LSHTM), and the University of Toronto. She is a proud participant of the BAFTA Newcomer Talent Initiative,  the Brooklyn Filmmakers' Collective, and Brown Girls Doc Mafia. She also teaches and mentors emerging storytellers through the Institute of Contemporary Photography, Columbia University, CUNY J-School, and her initiative This is Worldtown.