IndigenousThe 2025 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), now in its 50th season, offers a big platform for emerging and established Indigenous filmmakers willing to think outside the box. This year the Indigenous Screen Office has invested a total of $3.5 million in the development and production of a record eight feature films at TIFF. TIFF programmer says festival can be a great launching pad for Indigenous filmmakersCandace Maracle · CBC News · Posted: Aug 22, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 3 hours agoEva Thomas’ Nika & Madison is based on her 2023 short Redlights, and will be making its world debut at TIFF 50. (Submitted by Redlights Feature Productions Inc.)Bigger risks in filmmaking can mean bigger audiences for Indigenous cinema at the 50th season of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF). All of that means a bigger platform for emerging and established Indigenous filmmakers willing to think outside the box. This year the Indigenous Screen Office (ISO), an advocacy organization serving Indigenous content creators, invested a total of $3.5 million in the development and production of a record eight feature films at TIFF. Melanie Nepinak Hadley, ISO vice president of Industry Partnerships and Growth, said the ISO supports projects at various levels.”You’ll see some of these sort of lower budget — I dare use the word ‘scrappy’ films — that are really just new creators getting out there with a limited budget and still making a project work and still being very resourceful,” said Nepinak Hadley, who is from Minegoziibe Anishinabe (formerly Pine Creek First Nation) in Manitoba.”Then you’ll also see some of these projects where they have other international partners. They might have other funding within the Canadian ecosystem and they’re just at a different level budget-wise.”Nika & Madison is a Thelma and Louise-inspired story about two Indigenous women on the lam. (Submitted by Redlights Feature Productions Inc.)At ISO, she said, there’s conversation around ways to develop the sector so Indigenous projects can ultimately realize mainstream and global success regardless of where they start.With 20 years in the industry, Nepinak Hadley said she’s had the opportunity to see different sides of it from independent production to global media, and working with an Indigenous broadcaster as well as public broadcasters.”The thing that has been the most exciting to me is seeing the modernization of the Indigenous perspective. Not only were we sort of always doing documentaries, we were also always doing things that were either historical, a lot of which are very painful stories,” she said.Nepinak Hadley said projects like comedy series are getting funded and audiences are seeing Indigenous people depict themselves outside of an historical vacuum.Diversity in the kinds of projects being made means a bigger audience that isn’t just Indigenous, she said.A great launching padKelly Boutsalis, who is Kanien’kehá:ka from Six Nations of the Grand River, is the Canadian programmer at TIFF. She said she’s seen more risks taken in Indigenous storytelling in addition to the number of projects being created.For some filmmakers, Boutsalis said, TIFF can be a great launching pad.”I personally really love emerging filmmakers. I love bringing them on stage. That’s the perk of the job,” she said.Kelly Boutsalis has been the Canadian-International programmer at TIFF for four years. (GEORGE_PIMENTEL)”To feel their excitement and their nervousness before they premiere. And then seeing them receive the applause at the end of the film. That’s one of my favourite things.”Boutsalis said films focused on trauma needed to be made but so do stories that transcend the trauma Indigenous people have endured.Nika & Madison is one such story making its world debut at TIFF. Filmmaker Eva Thomas said the Thelma and Louise-inspired story is about two Indigenous women on the lam. “I wanted to tell a story about Indigenous women where they were powerful and strong and that you were rooting for them,” she said.Star Slade plays Nika’s best friend Madison in Nika & Madison which makes its world debut at TIFF 50. (Submitted by Redlights Feature Productions Inc.)The film is based on her short Redlights which, premiered at TIFF in 2023 and is inspired by the starlight tours, where police took Indigenous people to remote areas in sub-zero temperatures, leaving them there to find their own way back to the city.”I wanted to explore what the world felt like to be as an Indigenous woman, which is sometimes not safe and like you’re being hunted,” Thomas said.”How do we survive those things and how do we get through those things? Sometimes it’s by the women that we surround ourselves by.”She said the film’s takeaway message is people need each other to survive, but they also need each other to grow.Ellyn Jade, who also starred in the short film back in 2023, plays Nika. She said it was a cathartic experience for her to act in this role and also to see Thomas bloom as a director.Director, Eva Thomas from Walpole Island First Nation, is a Canadian Screen Award winner and TIFF’s Filmmaker Lab alum. (Submitted by Redlights Feature Productions Inc.)”It was really like a really beautiful journey of self discovery, like, from start to finish with Redlights now to be here,” she said.Star Slade, plays Nika’s best friend Madison and said she’s channeling her own efforts to reconnect with her Cree heritage into the character. “In between her trying to discover where her landing pad is and her love for Nika,” Slade said. “Their bond, their sisterhood and that being so anchored in the community.”Nika & Madison premieres on Sunday Sept 7. The Toronto International Film Festival runs from Sept 4 to 14.ABOUT THE AUTHORCandace Maracle is Wolf Clan from Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory. She has a master’s degree in journalism from Toronto Metropolitan University. She is a laureate of The Hnatyshyn Foundation REVEAL Indigenous Art Award. Her latest film, a micro short, Lyed Corn with Ash (Wa’kenenhstóhare’) is completely in the Kanien’kéha language.
TIFF 50 gives risk takers in Indigenous storytelling a big platform
