Deccan Herald’s Young & Successful list spotlighted Sarah Thomas at 25, tracing her early journey as a filmmaker and entrepreneur, the beginnings of STOM Productions, and the ambition behind building an independent creative company at a young age.

From The Unsung to Letters to My Abusers, Sarah Thomas discusses her work with stories of culture, survival and people often left unheard

Deccan Chronicle features Sarah Thomas and her documentary The Unsung, exploring her attempt to document the disappearing traditions, stories and cultural identity of Karnataka’s Halakki Vokkaliga community.

Sarah Thomas reflects on the disappearing silences in modern advertising, exploring how shorter formats, shifting attention and AI are changing storytelling — and why emotion, observation and the spaces between words still matter.

For this web design project, the goal is to create a visually stunning, user-friendly website that effectively showcases the brand's identity while ensuring seamless functionality across all devices. The design will focus on clean, modern aesthetics with intuitive navigation to enhance user experience. Key features will include responsive design, optimized loading speeds, and strategic use of multimedia elements to engage visitors. The project will also prioritize accessibility, ensuring that the site is inclusive and easy to use for all users. Custom graphics and animations will be integrated to add a unique touch, aligning with the brand's tone and style. The end result will be a website that not only looks beautiful but also drives engagement and conversions for the business.

STOM Productions was chosen as one of Silicon India’s 10 Best Women-Led Startups in Bangalore in 2021, recognising the company’s growth under founder Sarah Thomas and its place within the city’s emerging women-led business ecosystem. The feature looks at STOM’s journey as an independent production company and the entrepreneurial vision behind its growth

Sarah Thomas speaks candidly about the misogyny normalised within the entertainment industry, reflecting on the behaviours, language and power structures women are often expected to navigate quietly. The interview also looks at her journey as a filmmaker and offers a glimpse into the projects and ideas she was developing next, placing her creative ambitions alongside her views on the industry she was working within.

Mint examines why the enormous cultural influence of South Indian film stars does not always translate into national brand valuation. Sarah Thomas weighs in on the gap between recognition and real consumer influence, the different role social media plays in the South, and why conventional endorsement rankings can underestimate the cultural power of stars such as Rajinikanth and Vijay.

A closer look at River’s Made for Makers campaign and the visual thinking behind the film, from its theatre-inspired world to the practical sets and deliberately restrained use of CG and AI. The piece explores how director Sarah Thomas and STOM Productions built a tactile, authored visual language that kept the maker at the centre while allowing the River Indie to remain a quiet companion within the story.

A look at River’s Made for Makers campaign and the crafted world built around its solopreneurs, using theatre-inspired production, practical sets and stylised visual storytelling. The piece explores how the River Indie was woven quietly into the lives of its makers, allowing the people and their unconventional professions to remain at the centre of the film.

The Better India looks at The Unsung, Sarah Thomas’s documentary on Karnataka’s Halakki Vokkaliga community, and the people working to preserve its traditions. The article explores the community’s cultural heritage, the threat of disappearing customs, and the film’s effort to document a way of life at risk of being lost.

As AI becomes embedded in advertising workflows, Sarah Thomas examines the difference between using it for efficiency and allowing it to shape the creative itself. The article explores originality, sameness and the need to keep human judgement at the centre of the process.

Sarah Thomas speaks about her journey from filmmaker to founder, the beginnings of STOM Productions, the challenges of building an independent creative company, and how her experiences across storytelling, direction and entrepreneurship have shaped the path she continues to create for herself.

Director Sarah Thomas speaks about the journey behind The Unsung, from discovering the Halakki Vokkaliga community to spending a year documenting their lives, disappearing traditions and fight for recognition. She reflects on the questions the film raised around cultural erasure, displacement, modernisation and what is lost when communities slowly disappear from public memory.

A look at the making of The Unsung through director Sarah Thomas’s lens, tracing the year-long process of documenting the Halakki Vokkaliga community and earning their trust. The piece reflects on disappearing traditions, cultural identity and the responsibility of preserving stories that risk being lost to modernisation.

As Scarred began finding its audience, Deccan Herald spoke with director Sarah Thomas about the story behind the film, the realities it set out to confront, and the emotional weight of bringing such a deeply personal subject to screen.

STOM Productions was named Company of the Year 2022 by Decision Maker, recognising the company’s growth, body of work and contribution to the advertising and production industry. The interview looks back at the journey of building STOM, the creative and business decisions that shaped its evolution, the ideas and projects in development at the time, and the larger vision for where the company was headed next.

Six years after Scarred was made, the film continued to travel through festivals around the world. The piece revisits the documentary’s journey, the women whose stories shaped it, and Sarah Thomas’s reflections on why she chose to portray the reality of acid attacks without softening or aestheticising what the survivors had lived through.

A 21-year-old filmmaker takes on the issue of acid attacks through Scarred, speaking to survivors across India and even seeking out the perspective of an attacker to understand the violence from both sides. The piece looks at the making of the documentary, the stories behind it, and Sarah Thomas’s early determination to confront difficult subjects through film.