SYDNEY FREELAND

She/Her

“Sydney Freeland is a Native American and Transgender filmmaker. Her debut feature film, Drunktown’s Finest, explored the Navajo reservation where she grew up and the impact of gender, race, and culture within the community. The film premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and went on to win both the Grand Jury Prize and HBO Outstanding First Feature awards at LA Outfest 2014.” “Growing up near train tracks on a Navajo reservation around Gallup, New Mexico, Freeland didn’t know filmmaking could be her career. But after graduating from Navajo Prep in Farmington in 1999, she was accepted to Arizona State University…Freeland was named a 2004 Fulbright scholar. She’d graduate in 2007 with an MFA in Motion Pictures and Television from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. While in the city, Freeland would meet a trans woman who introduced her to the Navajo concepts of third and fourth genders. While Freeland had known she was a woman when she was younger, the filmmaker didn’t have the language to describe her experience. Coming off a journey of finding her authentic self in the California city, she went on to study at the Sundance Institute, which she credits with teaching her to truly tell a story. Freeland once believed she was operating at a deficit with no industry connections, never having been on a set, unsure of how to become a director. But in the years since her career began, she has repeatedly proven the thing that makes her an outsider in Hollywood — her background — is exactly the kind of thing that makes her successful there.” [Source 1, Source 2]

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