TIFF 2025 Interview with Director of ‘Nika & Madison’ Eva Thomas

Interview by Mercedes Gonzales-Bazan

Nika & Madison tells the story of two young Indigenous women with a tense friendship who come together again and rebuild their bond after a violent encounter with a police officer. For TIFF 2025, Mercedes Gonzales-Bazan, content producer for The Light Leaks, interviewed director Eva Thomas about her new film, which had its world premiere at the festival.

Thomas sat with us to share her journey as a filmmaker, the importance of telling Indigenous stories, and what inspired her to make Nika & Madison.

This story initially began as the short film Red Lights, which also premiered at TIFF in 2023. What made Nika and Madison the story you wanted to expand upon?

Eva Thomas, Director: It's interesting. A lot of people think that I made the short film and thought, "Oh, wouldn't this make a great feature?" Well, well, in fact, I wanted to make the feature. And I thought, well, no one's going to give me money to make a feature, having never directed anything at all. So, I was like, you know, how do people get their features made? How's that done? And kind of read about, you know, different people's paths to making their first feature. And I noticed that there were a number of people who made a short film first, and then they went on to make the feature. So I was like, okay, well, I'll just do that, so I made the short film as a path to making the feature, but there was always a feature in mind.

I was at your dialogue talk at TIFF, the Shortcuts to First Features panel, and I loved hearing each director's different journey. You mentioned you started with a passion for acting. So, can you share with our community more about what led you to the film industry?

Eva Thomas, Director: Yeah, I just remember loving movies as a kid and thinking, "Oh, I want to be in the movies." And I think I think a lot of people think, well, acting is the most it's the most visible of the jobs, if you will. Like we watch a movie, we see the actors and we think, okay, I want to be part of movie making. So I must want to be an actor. I trained as an as an actor. I went to London, England to train as a classical actor and then moved to LA because I wanted to work in movies, and I would work every October for all their Thanksgiving commercials, and I worked a lot in like as Indian Princess and a few different soap operas. But it just became really frustrating in the kind of roles that I was going out for at that was a handful of years ago. Luckily, things have changed, but at the time we called them the leather and the feather gigs. They wanted to put us on a horse, put us in leather, and put feathers in our hair, and I just got really frustrated with it, and I thought to myself, oh, this is not going to change until someone else starts to write something different, and I guess I better learn to write.

As a Canadian filmmaker who's premiered at TIFF before, what was it like to have your world premiere of your first solo feature at the festival and be amongst the audience? Any special moments?

Eva Thomas, Director: We after the film, we had a little standing ovation, which was really nice. Yeah, so you know, you make a film, and as a filmmaker, I remember even when like we were done, I was like, I think I made a bad movie. There's so much insecurity that goes into it, right? And so you're just like, "oh, my movie is terrible," but to get into a film festival like TIFF and then all the subsequent film festivals afterwards it goes a long way to build the confidence as a director. So for me it was just really a wonderful experience not only to have the short film premiere at TIFF, but then to come back two years later with the feature version and to have such a wonderful reception from the audience was lovely, and you know a lot of my friends and colleagues came out and really great responses from the audience.

And you've worked on several projects as a story editor. How does that experience influence your writing and directing style?

Eva Thomas, Director: Yeah, I say like I cut my teeth as a story editor, what it what it taught me is like really understanding the format of feature film, really understanding story and character arc, and how those things are important. And I worked with many writers with their scripts. In fact, this year at TIFF, in addition to my feature film, there were two feature films in the festival that I was story editor on, so it brings me a lot of pride and joy to work with other writers to bring their stories to life and I get to see them shine and it it pleases me so much when those films make it to the screen. I feel very invested in those writers and those stories, it's also a way like when I was waiting for my own career to pop, that I could do work that felt fulfilling to me, and it helped the journey that I didn't feel so frustrated in like however long it took, cuz I was doing something that felt important.

What should other filmmakers look for in a strong collaborator?

Eva Thomas, Director: I think it's important that someone who listens. Someone who can formulate ideas and, you know, bounce back. You know, it's not my way or the highway, at least in my collaborative space and world, and I think that I would like to do is like you sort of like set the tone early by saying this is not my film, this is our film. If you have ideas, I'm like interested to hear them. And then I think the important part is that you actually listen to the ideas and incorporate them.

How do you craft characters that the audience wants to root for?

Eva Thomas, Director: Well, it's funny you should say that because that's, you know, when people ask me like, "Why did you want to tell this film?" I'm like, "I wanted to create two Indigenous women that the audience would care about and root for." So, that was certainly, you know, and then in a way, create a sense of empathy for these characters. That idea of machines are movies are machines of empathy. I guess for me it was like telling a story where you could understand why they would act the way that they would act.

What takeaways do you hope for the audience after watching Nika and Madison, especially after the ambiguous ending?

Eva Thomas, Director: I'm hoping that there will be a little bit of understanding into the Indigenous experience. A little bit of understanding into the experience of what it's like to be an Indigenous woman, which is sometimes not feeling safe in the world often and not feeling supported. But we find a way to survive and thrive despite that. And I think I'm hoping that they have an opportunity to feel emotionally impacted by the film, maybe a few opportunities to laugh, but at the end of the day, that when that final frame comes up that you feel a sense of like, yeah, you know, "go get them, girl. Tell your truth. Speak your truth." Because there is an inherent power in that, and taking your power and agency back by telling the truth.

Watch the full interview to learn more!