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.
Inspired by age-old Filipino folklore, this frightening thriller is a chilling story about the resurfacing of dark family secrets. Catch this special screening at Innis Town Hall.
AVAILABLE ONLINE
Romeo Candido’s latest musical foray TOPLINE takes us into the world of topliners: the people who write the lyrics, melodies, and hooks for the industry’s biggest stars.
NOV 20 at 7:00 PM
Presenting a collection of short and mid-length work from Candido’s career available online from Nov 14 - Nov 20.
AVAILABLE ONLINE
Amidst a mountain of food, jokes, prayers, joints, songs and Filipino Elvis impersonations, Lolo's Child questions, criticizes and celebrates the intricate underbelly of the Filipino-Canadian community.
AVAILABLE ONLINE
How do you love a place that doesn’t seem to love you back Director David Siev broaches that question in Bad Axe, a complicated love letter to his hometown.
A collaborative exhibition by Jasmine Gui (special projects programmer, RA) & keiko Hart (co-curator), RA:X Puncta aims to present a plurality of punctum moments (as defined by Roland Barthes) that disturb and prick at diasporic Asian narratives and slip beyond an easy legibility of “Asianness”.
This year’s Reel Ideas Conference gathers industry professionals, filmmakers, and performers to reflect on the specificity in their works, representing their own nuances along with their communities' lived experiences.
Founded in Toronto in 1997, Reel Asian is Canada’s largest pan-Asian film festival and a year-round cultural organization dedicated to championing Asian and Asian diasporic artists and storytellers. What began as a grassroots film festival has grown into a national platform supporting filmmakers and audiences through screenings, education, industry initiatives, artist development, and community programming presented across Toronto, the GTA, and online across Canada.
401 Richmond Street West, The Commons (Suite 448)
Toronto, Ontario, M5V 3A8 Canada
(416) 703 – 9333
info@reelasian.com
Charitable number: 870021383RR0001
