Writer/Co-Director of "The Risen" (Festival de Cannes) - short film
Director "Beautiful Kauai" (Waialae Brothers Hawaiian band) - music video
Director "Slava" - short film
Script Supervisor "Trombone 77" (Bruce MacWilliams, DGA Writer/Director)
Script Supervisor "Dinner with the Hoffmans" - short film
Script Supervisor "Pickersville" - mockumentary
Gaffer "The Nut Sack" - commerical
Camera Operator "ROOMBA" (Writer/Director Anna Kim) - commercial
Production Design Assistant "Kung Pai Chicken" - narrative short film
Art Director "High on Art" (Writer/Director Rebecca Louisell)
2019 Innovation Tri-Valley Dreammakers and Risk Takers Award
2018 Cannes Film Festival “Emerging Filmmaker” Nomination in the American Pavilion for “The Risen”
2018 Long Beach Horror Film Festival Screening “The Risen”
2018 Monarch Film Festival Screening “The Risen”
2016 Student Voices Campaign Nomination “Bullying Awareness” PSA
Festival de Cannes nominated filmmaker, Sayla U'ilani Whalen, has written and directed thirty projects with nominations at Long Beach Horror Festival, Monarch Festival, etc. Recent graduate of The New York Film Academy with a BFA in Filmmaking, Sayla is now pursuing a career in television writing. She crewed on over twenty projects (music videos, short films, commercials) as script supervisor, camera operator, and production designer with budgets ranging from $1K-$25K. Her most recent project "First Comes Love" is a coming-of-age romance between two teenage girls struggling with grief, identity, and first love. As a queer, female, Kanaka Hawaiian, Sayla hopes to encourage more inclusion through her art.