Sarah Botstein

Sarah Botstein has been producing award-winning documentaries at Florentine Films since 1997. Along with Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, she is currently producing an epic series about the history and meaning of the Vietnam War, scheduled to broadcast on PBS in 2017, and a two-part biography of Ernest Hemingway, slated for broadcast in 2019. She is also producing a feature length documentary, directed by Lynn Novick, exploring the personal and intellectual transformation of incarcerated men and women in a highly successful prison education program. Ken Burns is the film's Executive Producer.

Most recently, she produced and curated the content for the Ken Burns App, which launched in February 2014. The app employs cutting technology and innovative design to highlight themes in American history.

Botstein (along with Burns and Novick) also produced Prohibition (2011), a three-part series about the rise, rule, and fall of the 18th Amendment, and The War (2007), a seven-part series about the American experience of the Second World War. The War and Prohibition each received numerous awards, including several Emmy Awards, and were among the most-watched series on PBS in the past ten years. Botstein was also an associate producer on Jazz (2001), the critically acclaimed ten-part series.

In 2008, she and Burns partnered with Herzog and Company to produce The Work To Come, a tribute to the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy. The film premiered at the Democratic National Convention.

Botstein has served as an advisor on many other Florentine productions, including: The Central Park Five, The Dust Bowl, The Tenth Inning, and The National Parks: America’s Best Idea. Prior to joining the company, she worked for Serino Coyne Public Relations and Owen Comora Associates, where she represented sponsors of Public Television and helped promote: The West, Thomas Jefferson, Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery, and Frank Lloyd Wright.

Botstein graduated from Barnard College/Columbia University with a degree in American Studies. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and their daughter.