John Torres born in 1975 is an independent filmmaker, writer, and musician from Manila. In 2006, John was awarded the Dragons & Tigers Award for Young Cinema at the 25th Vancouver International Film Festival for his debut feature, Todo Todo Teros (2006), with Apichatpong Weerasethakul as head of the jury. Todo Todo Teros also won the NETPAC and FIPRESCI critics awards at the 2006 Singapore International Film Festival and a Jury Special Mention at the Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival. In 2007, the Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino (Film Critics of the Philippines) nominated the film in four categories: Best Screenplay, Best Editing (won), Best Director, and Best Picture. His second feature film, Years When I was a Child Outside (2008) was awarded a Jury Special Mention in the Southeast Asian Competition of the 2008 Bangkok International Festival and the Grand Jury Prize in the 2007 Cinemanila International Film Festival. It was screened in competition in Rotterdam and in Berlin Forum Expanded as a multi-channel work. Lukas The Strange (2012) premiered at the International Film Festival Rotterdam and won a Special Mention at the Festival de Cine Lima Independiente in 2013. In 2017, Torres was an honoree of the Philippine Inquirer’s Indio Bravo! Awards for his film People Power Bombshell: The Diary of Vietnam Rose (2016), which also picked up a Jury Special Mention at the 2016 Cinema One Originals Film Festival and at Olhar de Cinema – Curitiba International Film festival in Brazil. To date, Torres has made five feature films and over a dozen short films in the past ten years. A special focus of his works has been shown at the Viennale, Seoul, Cosquín, and Bangkok.
The Asia Pacific Screen Academy expresses its respect for and acknowledgement of the South East Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. We pay our respects to the Traditional Owners of country, including the custodial communities on whose land works are created and celebrated by the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. We acknowledge the continuing connection to land, waters and communities. We also pay our respects to Elders, past and present. We recognise the integral role Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and First Nations peoples continue to play in storytelling and celebration spaces.
