Director. Columnist. Editor. Screenwriter.
Likes: Manga, Basketball, Conspiracy Theories
Dislikes: Cats, the touch of balloons or foam packaging or anything of the sort, ignorance
Oddball Past Time: Playing NBA Live 2005 on Gamecube over and over and over again. Been doing so for the past 6 years.
Favorite Videogame: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time
Growing up in the metropolis of Hong Kong, Philbert constantly found it difficult to blend in with the commercial culture and money-minded attitude that flooded the monolithic city. As a child, Philbert created stories and whole worlds with whatever he could find. From cut-outs of his own sketches to action figures that looked like popular superheroes, but represented characters that are nothing alike, Philbert continuously ventured into his own worlds. He owed a lot of his early inspiration to the first film he ever saw, Hayao Miyazaki’s Laputa: Castle In The Sky, which spawned his love for anime and manga even till this day.
Without much direction, Philbert attempted to blend art and commerce by testing out architecture, due to the demands of the packaged Hong Kong society. That fell through quickly but was unshaken, as he looked forward to the appealing Media Studies course in the last two years of high school. Filmmaking was a big part of the course, which welcomed Philbert back to his creative roots. Since his creativity spawned from anime and manga, but lacked talent in drawing, it made sense for him to continue to tell stories through live people.
Since then, Philbert’s passion for storytelling grew stronger, even gaining experience with tales of reality in journalism and documentaries with BEATS Magazine and CineFocus Canada. He continues to explore storytelling, most recently in facets of Asian culture, which began when he returned to his birthplace of Toronto and caused the creation of The Banana Times – creative platform where East peels into the West.
