director & creative

Sydne Horton is a queer creator whose award-winning work often explores themes of identity, coming-of-age, and human connection, while bending genres and subverting expectations.

She is an alum of the Women in Film Directing Mentorship, the Emmys Television Academy Internship, and she has been a semi-finalist for the SeriesFest Women Directing Program twice. Horton holds a BA in Television Directing from Columbia College Chicago, and has been mentored by director Maggie Kiley, and literary agent, Courtney Conwell. 

In 2019 she directed the short film, META, which screened across the world in over 30 festivals before ending its run with a 3-month exhibit at Seattle’s Museum of Pop Culture. Select festivals include, Outfest LA, Aesthetica Short Film, Final Girls Berlin, and more. META also received a writeup in the upcoming book, I SPIT ON YOUR CELLULOID: THE HISTORY OF WOMEN DIRECTING HORROR MOVIES. Her subsequent film, THE HOUSE SITTERS, was selected as 1 of 5 global competitors for Inside Out Toronto’s Pitch Please Competition, and it premiered with the Oscar-qualifying LA Shorts International Film Festival. More recently, she directed her coming-of-age proof of concept, SATURDAY RITUAL. This film shared its World Premiere with Palm Springs ShortFest where it was also in competition for the Best LGBT+ Film Jury Award. Since then, SATURDAY RITUAL has won the audience award for Best Teen Film at NewFest LGBTQ+ and it continues to make its way through the festival circuit.

In between directing projects, she has also expanded her visual approach to directing through her prop department work on Netflix’s MONSTERS: THE LYLE AND ERIK MENENDEZ STORY, Leyline Entertainment’s ON SWIFT HORSES, and more.