Issue 44: TIFF: Stories on Our Terms, in Our Words  September 9th 2026

Director Filmmaker, Eva Thomas on Saying No, Funding Her Vision, and Reconnecting with Her Indigenous Community

The First Nations director of Nika & Madison talks about resilience, reinvention, and building a career on her own terms. Eva Thomas's path to TIFF wasn't a straight line. Starting as an actress, she turned to writing out of necessity. Feeling like a failure and discouraged in LA, she reconnected with her roots in Ontario, learning how to fundraise, and starting choosing herself. Her feature debut Nika & Madison premiered at TIFF in 2025. She spoke with Spinning Forward to talk about her zig zag career and how being stuck and feeling like a failure lead to being open and trying new things.

First Nations director Eva Thomas reflects on resilience, reinvention, and building a career on her own terms. After starting as an actor and feeling discouraged in LA, she returned to Ontario, reconnected with her roots, learned to fundraise, and began choosing herself. Her debut feature, Nika & Madison, premiered at TIFF in 2025. In conversation with Spinning Forward, she shares how feeling stuck lead to trying new things that lead to new opportunites.

Spinning Forward: You stepped away from the industry at one point. What happened?

Eva Thomas: "I was very discouraged as an actress. And I was like, well, I'll just go work for my community. So I spent some time working for my community, working for the chief and council. I was the communication coordinator. I worked with a lot of youth. And so it really took that time to connect to my community. And then it was like, OK, now I feel like I should get back into this writing thing."

Spinning Forward: Career transition often means letting others down. How did you handle that?

Eva Thomas: "One of the things that was really hard in my adjustment from story editor, someone who wanted to help people and help my community specifically, was that it was hard for me to say no. It was hard for me to say, no, I don't have the capacity to help you because I'm working on my own stuff. It was very difficult. I actually reached out to a career counselor and said, 'This is what I want to do. I want to be a writer and director in film and TV, and I'm stuck in the story editing lane. And I need their help to get out of this lane and into this lane. And one of the ways that I can do that is to start saying no. Help me stop saying no to things so that I can say yes to myself.'"

Spinning Forward: Many creators of color struggle with funding. How did you raise the money for your short film, Red Lights?

Eva Thomas: "I learned how to grant write, and I raised the money for Red Lights by myself. I learned how to put together an application because I had seen it at the Harold Greenberg Fund, what looks good and what doesn't. I learned how to put together a budget. I had learned how to write a good script. I learned to put together a timeline. Because I had already done the grant for imagineNATIVE and for Ontario Arts, it was very easy to do it for the Indigenous Screen Office. Since I had the money, I could hire professionals. So even though as a director, I didn't know what I was doing, I had surrounded myself with professionals who could help me."

Spinning Forward: Nika & Madison premiered at TIFF 2025. What is the film about?

Eva Thomas: "Nika and Madison is about two childhood friends who fear they're not going to be believed when they have an encounter with the cops. And so they go on the run. It's a story about two Indigenous women who love and care about each other and have a history. Through the course of the movie, they're able to mend and reconnect. One of my main motivating factors was to show how much the Indigenous community does care for each other, the power of their sisterhood and the power of Indigenous women taking care of each other."

Spinning Forward: What advise to you for IBPOC creators?

Eva Thomas: "Once you're in it, you understand that there's an organic community that emerges. If you want to be successful in it, I suggest you learn that environment, learn that community. Go to film festivals, volunteer at TIFF. Because I worked so closely with writers, I was at the same time building a network. I have a network of people, and that's how I get a lot of my jobs, because I helped someone five years ago. I gave notes to someone five years ago that helped their thing, then they got greenlit, and now I got a job."

Spinning Forward: Any advice for creators feeling stuck?

Eva Thomas: "Effort doesn't disappear. It compounds. Reconnect to your roots, learn to say yes to yourself, and build alongside your community. The work will find you."