Bio

Lolade Leigh-Thompson is a Nigerian Canadian Filmmaker born in Guelph, Ontario and raised in Lagos, Nigeria. She fell in love with acting at an early age. After graduating with a BA Honours degree in History, she returned to Canada in 1994 in search of herself and dreams.

After years of waiting for the magical moment, Lolade took a different approach to her dreams. In 2012, She wrote, produced, acted, and directed her first film – “You’re Beautiful” a preteen short about self-esteem and bullying. It had 17 first time children actors from her local Ajax community.

In 2013, “You’re Beautiful” was screened at the Pan African Film Festival (PAFF) – Los Angeles. Lolade engaged her community to help raise funds to take four of the children to the Pan African Film festival in LA. She wanted the kids to know if they could dream and work for it; all things were possible. It also screened at other festivals in the US and Canada.

In 2018, her first feature “Get The Sucker Back” a comedy had a limited theatrical release at the Cineplex Famous player Canada Square Toronto. It was # 1 at the box office opening weekend and # 2 of the top 6 Canadian films on Rogers cable for 3 consecutive months (Nov 2018 – Jan 2019). December 2022, she produced her second short film a fantasy comedy titled “Oh Deer!”. The feature version is currently in development.

Over the last 30 years, Lolade has worked in various industries, 15 of which she worked as a Project Coordinator and Project Manager in the Telecommunications industry implementing and managing Network infrastructures builds for multiple projects simultaneously.  She loves God, believes in diversity, the elevation of humanity, women empowerment, and life-time learning. She loves travelling, meeting new people, singing, and reading. Lolade lives with her husband Akinwale, daughters (Temi and Tosin) and their dog Maximus