Sydney Freeland

Biography

Sydney Freeland (born October 10, 1980) is a Native American (Navajo) filmmaker. She wrote and directed the short film Hoverboard (2012) and the film Drunktown's Finest (2014), which garnered numerous acclaims after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival. Her second film, Deidra and Laney Rob a Train, debuted at Sundance and was released on Netflix in 2017.

Before making her first feature-length film, Drunktown's Finest, Freeland previously worked as a production assistant, as a writer, and as a camera intern. Freeland worked for several different media companies, including The Food Network, Walt Disney, Comedy Central, and National Geographic. 

Freeland directed a six-minute short, Hoverboard, utilizing Kickstarter to help fund the short. The film was inspired by Back to the Future Part II. Drunktown's Finest is her second venture into filmmaking. The 95-minute-long film is a coming-of-age story about the complex issues surrounding identity and the struggles faced by Native American people. 

The film's name is inspired by a controversial 20/20 segment on ABC News, which branded the town of Gallup, New Mexico as "Drunk Town, USA", after the increase of instances of alcoholism on the border of the Navajo Nation. Freeland wrote and directed Drunktown's Finest as a way to combat negative stereotypes of her home community. 

Freeland, who is herself a transgender woman, also directed a digital series about queer and trans women called Her Story. The series was nominated for the newly created Emmy Award category of Outstanding Short Form Comedy or Drama.

In 2014 Freeland was named a United States Artists (USA) Fellow.

On March 19, 2022, Freeland joined as a director for the upcoming superhero streaming series Echo for Disney+. In 2022, she was included in the Fast Company Queer 50 list.