Welcome to NYWIFT, Hyten Davidson!
Hyten Davidson is a SAG-AFTRA actor and award-winning screenwriter, currently serving as one-third of Maternity Leave Films after years of touring the festival circuit with various films.
Her short film The West Virginian Starfish, which she wrote and co-directed, won the Long Island Film Expo award for Best Short Film, in addition to a host of other nominations and screenwriting wins.
Hyten has additionally been a Featured Female Filmmaker nominee at the Shortcut 100 International Film Festival, PANO grant recipient, and Mary W. Shelley Scholarship winner from the Horror Writers Association.
In our interview, Hyten discussed her approach to writing horror, representing motherhood and female-driven stories in film, and her upcoming film Something of a Monster.
Welcome to NYWIFT! Could you give our readers a brief introduction to yourself?
I’m Hyten, a SAG-AFTRA actor, writer, producer, and co-founder of Maternity Leave Films. I primarily write and work on ecological stories about women in the horror and psychological thriller landscape.
Originally from Virginia, I got my BFA in Acting from The Hartt School Conservatory before moving to Chicago to build up some early writing and producing credits. I now live in the NYC area making films and often co-write with my husband Christian Missonak.
What brought you to NYWIFT?
A sense of adoration and excitement to hang out with other female filmmakers and coerce them into dishing their filmmaking secrets and success stories.
What made you fall in love with writing horror?
Horror requires so much collaboration between departments to work well, but it feels like the only thing it doesn’t require is a lot of money. Which I don’t have anyway. That precise yet non-precious balance is really fun. It’s a genre that demands ambition, innovation, and weird ideas.
You have had a varied career as a literary and visual storyteller. How do you decide between mediums when telling a story?
Even if the goal is to write a story as a screenplay, I do like composing it as a prose fiction piece first, just to wiggle out the overall feelings and sentiment of the idea. Writing it in one medium can help eventually inform writing it in another, so it’s symbiotic relationship.
Your production company, Maternity Leave Films, has so far produced films that feature moments of crisis in early motherhood. Could you share more with us about Maternity Leave Films and the vision behind it?
Maternity Leave Films was born in 2023 out of necessity, as a way for me and co-founders Brandon Duncan and Ashley Bacon to create works while adapting to our evolving lives as parents. We now work to create genre-flipping female-driven stories on a budget. Ashley and I will be at a bunch of upcoming NYWIFT events—come talk to us!
What inspired your upcoming film, Something of a Monster, and what are you hoping audiences take away from it?
I wrote this with my husband while pregnant with my first son, at a time when I was wrestling dual fears of both being a mom and not being a mom, so there’s a lot of that panic and stress baked into the film.
Pregnant, not pregnant, trying, couldn’t care less – I do hope audiences take away a sense of compassion and solidarity with those who are going through a mental crisis of any kind.
What are you excited to explore next in your career journey?
At the moment, I’m working on getting some bigger and bolder projects off the ground in 2026 so I’m excitedly gearing up for a new year of new challenges!
Connect with Hyten on her website www.hyten-davidson.com or on Instagram @hytendavidson.
Something of a Monster was released on all VOD platforms on December 4th. Learn more by watching the trailer or following @soam_film on Instagram.
(All images courtesy of Hyten Davidson)
Briana Wilson
Briana Wilson is an intern at NYWIFT and a writer/director. She graduated from New York University with bachelor's degrees in Applied Psychology and Hebrew & Judaic Studies. After years of working in post-production, finance, and operations, she is excited to join the NYWIFT community. Briana is passionate about film, research, and the power of curiosity to create connection and change.
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