EXPERIENCE

SYDNEY SIDNER is an award-winning filmmaker, screenwriter and educator.

Syd created the pilot MERIDIAN HILLS which she sold to the CW. She also co-wrote a pilot (reboot) of CHARMED for CBS. Her other works include the TV pilots: BELIEVE ME, COMPLICATIONS, BLISS CITY, TIOGA LAKE, and ROUGE. The features: SKIRT and GETTING BUDDHA BACK, as well as INDISPOSED, a short produced by Warner Bros. for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).

She has taught TV pilot writing and screenwriting at Columbia film school, NYU film school and Stony Brook’s M.F.A. Manhattan film program. She taught acting, improv and directed at The Dalton School and taught both theater and screenwriting classes at Northwestern University’s National High School Institute (NHSI).

Sydney has an extensive background in theater directing and filmmaking. After receiving a BFA in acting from Carnegie-Mellon, she went to New York and began directing plays at venues including Manhattan Class Company, Circle Rep, Lincoln Center, The National Theater of London, and Williamstown Theater Festival, where she was awarded the Boris Sagal Directing Fellowship. She was also awarded grants from The Drama League of New York, Circle Rep Lab and New York Foundation for the Arts.

She went on to earn an MFA in screenwriting from Columbia Film School, where her short THE RITE won ‘Best Film’ at the Columbia Film Festival, and was a finalist for The National Board of Review’s ‘Best Student Film.’ Another short she directed, GRAVITY, was selected by both Slamdance and Williamstown Film Festivals. Her feature-length screenplay ADELAIDE was awarded a MacDowell Colony screenwriting residency.