PJ Marcellino
- Producer
- Director
- Writer
P.J. Marcellino (DGC, DOC) is a Toronto-based, Lisbon-born, Cape Verdean-Canadian producer and director. Marcellino started his career in arts and culture journalism, editing, and publishing. He later pivoted to social and economic research primarily within academia, before expanding to political communications and policy advisory roles with international governments and agencies.
He has worked as an independent producer since 2012. His slate of projects tend to approach subjects such as identity, belonging, memory reclamation, migration, and social issues, subjects that he has been deepening since his days in politics.
His first mid-length as a director, the documentary "After the War: Memoirs of Exile" (2014) dealt with memory, archive, and inter-generational PTSD. The film received nominations for various awards, and was shortlisted for a SAMHSA Voice Award 2015, an Obama-Biden White House initiative awarding productions dealing with mental health on screen. His award-winning debut feature, "When They Awake" (2017), co-directed with "Knock Down The House" co-producer Hermon Farahi, tackled Canada's Indigenous cultural renaissance through the lens of its burgeoning music scene as a foray into social and political intervention. The film would spend a year in the international festival circuit, hitting 60+ festivals in 30 countries.
Since then, Marcellino has directed various independent short films, while dedicating the majority of his time to development and production roles in independent feature films and TV projects, including "#4 Mangifera", "The Edge of Space". He works on documentary, experimental, and narrative projects, namely political thrillers, political procedurals, and Sci-Fi, including the limited series "Black Mangrove: The Wiwa Story", co-created with J. Timothy Hunt. In factual formats, he was the first person to occupy (and design) the Senior Protocol Producer role with "Big Brother Canada" (2021-2022), sketching out an emerging position being rolled out to Reality TV sets around the world.
Marcellino holds several politics and film/media degrees from leading universities in Portugal, Wales, Canada, and Argentina. He studied documentary at Seneca College and completed the Media Leadership Program at Schulich School of Business, both in Toronto. He is a fellow of the Netflix-Banff Diversity of Voices Initiative, an alum of Geena Davis' BFF Foundation, Ji.Hlava Academy, and IEFTA, and is a recipient of the Rigoberta Menchu Social Award. He is also a voting member of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, a member of the Directors Guild of Canada (DGC), the Documentary Organization of Canada (DOC), and - through his company, Anatomy of Restlessness Films - a member of the Canadia Media Producers Association (CMPA).
He has worked as an independent producer since 2012. His slate of projects tend to approach subjects such as identity, belonging, memory reclamation, migration, and social issues, subjects that he has been deepening since his days in politics.
His first mid-length as a director, the documentary "After the War: Memoirs of Exile" (2014) dealt with memory, archive, and inter-generational PTSD. The film received nominations for various awards, and was shortlisted for a SAMHSA Voice Award 2015, an Obama-Biden White House initiative awarding productions dealing with mental health on screen. His award-winning debut feature, "When They Awake" (2017), co-directed with "Knock Down The House" co-producer Hermon Farahi, tackled Canada's Indigenous cultural renaissance through the lens of its burgeoning music scene as a foray into social and political intervention. The film would spend a year in the international festival circuit, hitting 60+ festivals in 30 countries.
Since then, Marcellino has directed various independent short films, while dedicating the majority of his time to development and production roles in independent feature films and TV projects, including "#4 Mangifera", "The Edge of Space". He works on documentary, experimental, and narrative projects, namely political thrillers, political procedurals, and Sci-Fi, including the limited series "Black Mangrove: The Wiwa Story", co-created with J. Timothy Hunt. In factual formats, he was the first person to occupy (and design) the Senior Protocol Producer role with "Big Brother Canada" (2021-2022), sketching out an emerging position being rolled out to Reality TV sets around the world.
Marcellino holds several politics and film/media degrees from leading universities in Portugal, Wales, Canada, and Argentina. He studied documentary at Seneca College and completed the Media Leadership Program at Schulich School of Business, both in Toronto. He is a fellow of the Netflix-Banff Diversity of Voices Initiative, an alum of Geena Davis' BFF Foundation, Ji.Hlava Academy, and IEFTA, and is a recipient of the Rigoberta Menchu Social Award. He is also a voting member of the Academy of Canadian Cinema and Television, a member of the Directors Guild of Canada (DGC), the Documentary Organization of Canada (DOC), and - through his company, Anatomy of Restlessness Films - a member of the Canadia Media Producers Association (CMPA).
