Syeed directed his first feature VALLEY OF SAINTS in Kashmir. The film won the World Cinema Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival and the Special Jury Prize at the Dubai International Film Festival in 2012. His recent short THE BIG HOUSE, which he shot in Yemen, is now touring the festival circuit.
He previously co-produced the short documentaries BRONX PRINCESS (Berlinale) and A SON’S SACRIFICE (Best Doc Short, Tribeca).
Syeed is also very interested in interactive storytelling and has taken part in a few hackathons. He was a co-producer of the platform www.30daysramadan.com, which was developed at the Mozilla Hackathon and supported by ITVS.
Syeed taught film for Williams College and was a Fulbright fellow in Egypt. He is an alumnus of New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts and the Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies Department.