Canadian Spotlight: Romeo Candido

Challenging norms, paving the road, and telling fresh stories, our Canadian Spotlight Artist program is dedicated to a member of the dynamic and talented Asian Canadian film community. This program celebrates a selected artist by activating their journey, process, and future works.

Romeo Candido is a singular talent. A writer, director, and musician, his creative catalogue of work comprising musicals, horror, and comedy is a unique adventure. What else would you expect from the first Filipino born in Newfoundland? His genre-hopping career has been weaved into the fabric of Reel Asian, from his first feature film Lolo’s Child (1999) to the horror film Ang Pamana: The Inheritance (2007) to the bring-down-the-house live performance of the web musical Prison Dancer (2012) to his numerous short films in between. While we’ve recently seen exciting work from emerging Filipinx Canadian artists, Candido was an original. But like us, he’s far from done, as we feature Topline (2022) with a one-time-only live performance of his latest musical series.