SAMPREETH RAO

Born near the cradling waves of Goa, India and raised in the diverse suburbs of Scarborough, Sampreeth Rao is a filmmaker that tells intimate stories about the South Asian diaspora. Informed by his experience as an immigrant, his work focusses on the alienation and confusion caused by local societal norms and distant cultural expectations.

His experimental film, Watching TV with the Mind Off, used hand-processed 16mm film to profile the coming-of-age ruminations of Indian-Trinidadian artist Kevin Ramroop. Receiving grants from LIFT and CUE, the work featured in the TIFFxInstagram Shorts Film Festival and Regent Park Film Festival, where he was awarded the RBC Emerging Director’s Award. In 2019, he was a researcher/curator with the Ward Museum, creating Block by Block, a multi-community oral history exhibition about Toronto’s migrants. Most recently, he co-wrote The Legend of Malvern, a story-based essay about memory-making as a form of power-preservation among Scarborough youth for Anique Jordan's Three-Thirty exhibition (as a part of the Scotiabank Contact Photo Festival).

Currently, he is working on Where the Trees Speak for Nuit Blanche 2021, an interactive outdoor installation that utilizes the Rouge Park as a metaphor for migration in Scarborough. Additionally, he is directing the Ontario Arts Council-funded Morningside Avenue, a dark comedy about a medical student who wants to pursue a rap career. He is also the co-founder of Wave Art Collective, a creative arts incubator for Scarborough youth. In 2021, the collective will be artists-in-residence at the University of Toronto’s Doris McCarthy Gallery.