Award-winning Toronto writer and director Kelly Fyffe-Marshall has made it a mission to disrupt the way North American media typically portrays Black people. Her filmmaking debut, 2018 short film Haven, tackles childhood sexual assault. In 2020, she released two short films, Black Bodies and Marathon, that use spoken-word poetry to illuminate the trauma of experiencing anti-Black racism. (The films were inspired by a personal experience: on a visit to California, Fyffe-Marshall and two friends, Komi Olaf and Donisha Prendergast, were leaving their rental when a neighbour called the police, accusing them of burglary.) And her first feature film, 2022’s When Morning Comes, is a self-proclaimed “love letter to Jamaica” that both celebrates her Caribbean heritage and beautifully explores the immigrant experience. Watching her work makes it clear: Fyffe-Marshall is a singular talent. But she’s also funny, smart and unapologetically ambitious. In this week’s episode of Making Our Own Way, she chats with Friday Things about how being an immigrant impacts her approach to filmmaking, the particular challenges of finding funding as a young Black woman and what it means to tell ‘Canadian stories.’ (There is also a story about a beaver that I will not even try to summarize, tbh. You really just have to watch that part.)

Making Our Own Way is a six-part video series about GTA creatives who are figuring out their own unique pathways to success, both within and outside of traditional power structures. Hosted by Friday Things founder and editor Stacy Lee Kong, each video features thoughtful conversations about what it’s like to break new ground—and why it matters that we do. We also laugh (a lot).

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