Sydney Freeland (born October 29, 1980) is a Native American (Navajo) filmmaker. She wrote and directed the film Drunktown's Finest (2014), which garnered numerous acclaims after premiering at the Sundance Film Festival.[1] Her second film, Deidra & Laney Rob a Train, debuted at Sundance and was released on Netflix in 2017;[2] her third, Rez Ball, released in 2024.
Early life
Freeland was born in Gallup, New Mexico, United States in 1980 to a Navajo father and a Scottish mother, and she was raised on a Navajo reservation. Freeland attended Academy of Art University in San Francisco.[3] She is a 2004 Fulbright scholar, focusing her scholarship on a field study of indigenous peoples in Ecuador. She has a Master of Fine Arts in film, and a Bachelor of Fine Arts in computer animation. Freeland is a 2007 Disney Scholarship recipient and a 2008 Disney Fellowship semifinalist. Freeland is also a 2009 Sundance Institute Native Lab fellow.[3][4]
Career
Prior to making her first feature-length film, Drunktown's Finest, Freeland previously worked as a production assistant, as a writer and as a camera intern.[5] Freeland worked for a number of different media companies, including The Food Network, Walt Disney, Comedy Central, and National Geographic.[6]
Freeland directed a six-minute short, Hoverboard, utilizing Kickstarter to help fund the short.[7] 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[8] is a coming-of-age story about the complex issues surrounding identity and the struggles faced by Native American people.[8][9] 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.[10] Freeland wrote and directed Drunktown's Finest as a way to combat negative stereotypes of her home community.[8] Freeland, who is herself a transgender woman, also directed a digital series about queer and trans women called Her Story.[11] The series was nominated for the newly created Emmy Award category of Outstanding Short Form Comedy or Drama.[12]
On March 19, 2022, Freeland joined as a director for the upcoming superhero streaming series Echo for Disney+.[14] In 2022, she was included in the Fast Company Queer 50 list.[15]
