Meet Syd Whalen

Femininity is more than an attribute… it’s the powerful underdog.

Syd Whalen is an award-winning Vancouver-based writer, director, and assistant director whose work spans narrative, documentary, and music film. Through her company, Rupture House Productions, she writes and directs original, festival-driven films spanning dark fantasy, psychological thrillers, and mythic realism dramas, exploring women’s interior lives, grief, and the power structures that keep those stories silent.

Her documentary short The Reflection (2024) won Best Female Director Short Film at the Cannes World Film Festival and Best Short Documentary and Best Director Short Documentary at the London Vision Film Festival, and was nominated for Best Student Film at the Toronto International Women’s Film Festival. Her narrative short The End. (2025) won Best Psychological Film at the Cannes World Film Festival and Best Silent Film at the Absurd Film Festival.

Whalen also works in the assistant directing department, bringing a writer-director’s understanding of story to the floor. She served as 2nd AD on the proof of concept SPECULO for Good Idea Studio and on the student short The GodGrandpa, where she also led casting. Her crew credits include script supervisor on SPOT and picture editor on Conflict of Interest.

She holds a Documentary Certificate (Dean’s List) from Capilano University, where she is completing a Bachelor of Motion Picture Arts. Performing as Syd Carter West, she has spent more than a decade as a singer-songwriter and has directed and edited eight music videos, including Bloodlight, currently on the festival circuit. Her editorial photography has been featured in Vogue Italia.

Whalen is currently in post-production on the narrative short Tainted Souls and developing her first feature, Lunaria. Her aim is to make haunting, emotionally resonant films brought to life through immersive, image-led visuals.