Meet Syd Whalen

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

Syd Whalen is a Vancouver-based writer-director whose work spans narrative, documentary, and music film. Her films have earned international recognition, including two Cannes World Film Festival wins: Best Female Director for the documentary The Reflection (2024) and Best Psychological Film for the narrative short The End. (2025), alongside multiple awards at the London Vision Film Festival.

Through her company, Rupture House Productions, she writes and directs original, festival-driven films with full creative control, exploring women’s interior lives, grief, and mythic realism. While she has edited across a range of earlier projects, her creative focus remains screenwriting and directing.

She holds a Documentary Certificate (Dean’s List) from Capilano University and is completing a Bachelor of Motion Picture Arts. Performing as Syd Carter West, she has spent over a decade as a singer-songwriter, and her editorial photography, from Vancouver Fashion Week to nature work, has been featured in Vogue Italia. Her writing and directing run in parallel with this ongoing practice in music and photography, each discipline feeding the others.

Above all, Syd’s ambition as a filmmaker is to write and direct genre films rooted in dark fantasy, psychological thriller, and mythic realism: emotionally resonant, haunting, and twisted stories brought to life through captivating and immersive visuals.