A lonely house-wife’s plan to end it all takes an unexpected turn when her last hurrah begins a radical journey of sexual exploration and personal re-invention.
Candice Vadala aka Candida Royalle is known to many as the “godmother of feminist porn.” In Candice, director Sheona McDonald crafts a layered portrait of the woman behind the icon. The film captures Vadala in her sixties when, confronted with a Cancer diagnosis, she is eager to tell her story and to confront questions that have haunted her since childhood. Candice is a tribute to a resilient woman whose impact on sex positivity and women’s sexual autonomy echoes far beyond the adult film industry.
Candida Royalle, born Candice Vandala, grew up in New York City and trained in dance and music before entering the adult film industry in 1974. Candida starred in about 25 Golden Age films before retiring from performing in 1984 - after which she became the first woman to start her own studio, Femme Productions, and was one of the earliest female directors. In her later years, she, with the help of a private investigator, managed to track down her birth mother, who had abandoned her at 18 months, but she had already passed away from ovarian cancer. Not long after, Royalle was herself diagnosed with ovarian cancer, which she succumbed to on September 7, 2015.