Pepperdine Alumna Katie Stjernholm Produces Award-Winning Documentary Film

Katie Stjernholm (’10) discovered her vocation serendipitously.  An international studies major with a minor in nonprofit management, she was convinced throughout her first two years of college that the nonprofit sector was her calling. But when film professor Tom Shadyac invited Stjernholm to join The Art of Storytelling and Life class, everything changed. 

“We would watch documentaries. We would laugh; we would cry; and students from all corners of campus would find common ground.” says Stjernholm. “Sitting in that classroom, I was struck with the realization that film has this powerful way of bringing people together. It has this way of changing people's hearts and minds, and I was drawn to that.” 

Today, Stjernholm is the Emmy-winning producer of Champions of the Golden Valley, a documentary film about an unexpected skiing community of Afghanistan. Her journey from storytelling enthusiast to industry insider started out as an unexpected course correction—one that inspired her to cofound Pepperdine’s Reel Stories Film Festival—and has become a profound professional calling to give voices to those in need. And to think, all this unfolded because of one professor, because of one class.

Act One

The Art of Storytelling and Life was not your typical film class. Shadyac, a film director known for box office hits like Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, Patch Adams, Bruce Almighty, and The Nutty Professor, ignored the conventional classics. Instead, each class session was built around a different documentary detailing true events, a focus that opened Stjernholm’s eyes to the potential impact of nonfiction filmmaking.

“Documentaries are so powerful because they reveal real life,” says Stjernholm. “They allow you to walk in someone else's shoes, to experience and understand perspectives different from what you’ve lived.”

Stjernholm and a few other classmates were invited to accompany Shadyac to the Mountainfilm Festival in Telluride, Colorado. There in the San Juan Mountains, immersed in the world of documentary storytelling, she started to wonder if filmmaking could be a viable career.

Reel Stories Film Festival 

The question did not disappear with time. In her senior year, Stjernholm and a few classmates decided to create Pepperdine’s first ReelStories Film Festival in January 2010—which is still an annual, student-run event where undergraduate filmmakers can showcase and earn recognition for their work.

“I had never made a film at that point, but ReelStories gave me my first taste of producing: of bringing all the details together to make an idea a reality,” she says. 

That first year, Stjernholm helped secure Hollywood royalty like Ron Howard, Christopher and Jonathan Nolan, and Randall Wallace to serve as judges for the event. And like that, undergraduate students across Pepperdine started to take filmmaking seriously and try their hand at the art form.

Impressed by ReelStories and Stjernholm’s successful initial endeavor as a producer, Wallace, the screenwriter of Braveheart and director of Secretariat, approached the Seaver College senior and said, “After graduation, come work for me.”

Could filmmaking be a viable career? It seemed more likely now.

Act Two

Despite her unexpected introduction to the industry, it still took time for Stjernholm’s career as a producer to come into focus. 

Before graduating from Pepperdine,  Stjernholm had been awarded an overseas graduate fellowship that would cover her graduate school tuition as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar. Because of this, she worked alongside Wallace for nearly a year before hopping across the Pacific Ocean to Australia. Stjernholm earned an executive master of arts from the University of Melbourne—a degree that focused on both arts management and traditional MBA courses. But even in a foreign country, producing called her name.

In short order and upon wrapping her graduate program, Stjernholm found herself working for Lonely Planet, a global travel brand owned by the BBC at the time and headquartered in Melbourne. There, she helped produce and project manage travel guides and travel media films for clients such as Warner Brothers, Visa, Nikon, and Qantas. This unorthodox reintroduction into the entertainment world ultimately pushed Stjernholm to relocate back to the US, where she launched her own commercial production company.

“I was realizing that a lot of people could shoot and edit film,” she says. “But I was really interested in what happens after the movie is complete. How do you market it? How do you make sure people see it? How do you make sure it has a real impact in the world?”

By following these interests, Stjernholm has successfully managed her own business for the past 12 years. As a film producer and impact strategist, she has helped major clients like the Smithsonian Institute, World Wildlife Fund, Samsung, Annie’s, and Arc’teryx tell their stories. Her short film and commercial work has been featured on National Geographic, yhe Discovery Channel, and the Olympics. And, at the same time, she’s been able to make an impact in the genre that was her first love, documentary film.

Poster designed by Desiree Nasim

Stjernholm’s most recent project—Champions of Golden Valley— started with an article covering a mythical-sounding ski competition in Afghanistan. She was soon organizing a budget from a small grant and supporting travel logistics for the project’s director, her partner Ben Sturgulewski,  and their crew.  After that initial production in 2019, Sturgulewski edited a heartwarming short film during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The original documentary told the story of Alishah Farhang—who sought to become Afghanistan's first Olympic skier. When he narrowly missed qualifying for the Olympics, he returned to his hometown of Bamyan to inspire a vibrant new ski culture. With makeshift wooden skis and secondhand gear, young athletes from rival villages trained side by side. The young men and women would compete in an annual ski race like no other—uniting the community in a moment of joy, hope, and triumph.

In August 2021 however, soon after Stjernholm and Sturgulewski finished that short film, Afghanistan collapsed to Taliban rule. Many of the athletes in Bamyan were forced to flee, and the community they had filmed unraveled overnight.

Sturgulewski with Stjernholm

“It was harrowing to witness,” says Stjernholm. “We began receiving messages on WhatsApp and Facebook from the athletes in Bamyan asking for help. We started living on Afghanistan time in Colorado and working around the clock with volunteer veterans, intelligence agencies, and NGOs in order to find safe passageways out. It was unfathomable to witness what these brave people were enduring, as their beautiful community disbanded.”

During this time, Stjernholm was able to directly support a German NGO, serving as its primary liaison with the US military. In the process, they helped more than 260 Afghans safely evacuate the country, including a number of female skiers, climbers, and swimmers.  

As Stjernholm and Sturgulewski followed up with the athletes of the original documentary, they realized a new story was unfolding, one that was more urgent to tell. Rather than focusing on a ski culture in an unexpected region of the world, this new piece was about refugees summoning the courage to rebuild life away from their homeland. 

And like that, the production flew to Germany to catch up with the main protagonist and ski coach Alishah Farhang, who had fled Afghanistan with his family. In Europe, the cameras kept rolling, and in time, Champions of the Golden Valley became a feature documentary. 

What had started as a small passion project snowballed into a film debuting at the Tribeca Film Festival for its world premiere. The tiny director-producer team of Sturgulewski and Stjernholm expanded into a larger ecosystem of partners, investors, and impact organizations.  

Act Three

At this time, the documentary has been screened at more than 100 festivals and has won 52 jury prizes and audience awards and 25 grand prizes in the process. Amid its festival circuit, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and education activist Malala Yousafzai and Emmy-nominated producer and actor Arian Moayed (Succession, Wonder Man)  both joined the film team as executive producers. 

Yousafzai and Stjernholm

“In a moment when stories about Afghanistan can feel dominated by pain and fear, this film is a reminder of the joy and humanity that endure” shared Yousafzai and Moayed in a joint statement. “The skiers of Bamyan show what resilience truly looks like—choosing play, community, and hope, even as they build their own skis and create a culture of possibility from the ground up. Watching these young athletes glide down a mountain with pure delight reveals how joy can coexist with hardship, and how sport becomes language, connection, and liberation. This is the spirit the film captures so beautifully, and the vision we are honored to share with audiences everywhere.”

At a time where the sales and streaming landscape for documentaries is notoriously difficult, the IOC/Olympics Channel recently acquired Champions of the Golden Valley. The film launched with the 2026 Milano-Cortina Winter Games and is now available to stream globally online in 12 languages—for free—at Olympics.com. 

Given its increasing exposure, Champions of the Golden Valley is continuing to bear a positive impact on global viewers. The film is still shown in ski towns, classrooms, and communities around the world. It even enjoyed a screening at Pepperdine, where Stjernholm and Sturgulewski fielded questions from the University community. The documentary's growing visibility has led to prestigious recognition. In May 2026, Stjernholm and the Champions team were awarded a National Emmy for Outstanding Sports Documentary: Long Form, beating out big-budget docs from Netflix, ESPN, and HBO Max.

The Bamyan Alpine Ski Club

“This project has gone further than we ever thought possible. At its core, it has always been an underdog team telling an underdog story. We've shown this film around the world, and it seems to have a universal resonance,” says Stjernholm. “People with different belief systems and viewpoints connect with this human story. At the end of the day, that's what makes film and storytelling so powerful — because people can imagine themselves in the story. Film shortens the distance we need to travel to understand each other.”

While Stjernholm might have discovered the compelling power of narrative unexpectedly as a Pepperdine student, today she is hard at work intentionally harnessing the silver screen’s ability to do good, spread compassion, and give voices to the otherwise voiceless. In short, she has successfully risen from being an inspired spectator of film to being an impactful part of the medium’s storytelling efforts, and her original mentor has taken notice.

“Katie thinks I changed her life. She’s got it backward,” shared Shadyac. “When I first watched Champions, I was stunned at the storytelling, the execution, the beautiful beating heart of the piece. It deservedly just won the Emmy and will soon win the hearts and minds of millions more. It’s been the joy of a lifetime to watch Katie grow as an artist, and a person. I’m not just proud of Katie, I’m in awe.”

Learn more about Champions of the Golden Valley, and reach out to championsdoc@gmail.com to request a community screening.