spotlight FILMMAKER
KELLY FYFFE-MARSHALL

Toronto filmmaker Kelly Fyffe-Marshall is featured as this year’s Spotlight Filmmaker, an annual TOPS tradition that allows us to highlight local artists whose work inspires our programme selections (past Spotlight Filmmakers are Zack Russell, Danis Goulet and Trevor Anderson).

A writer-director who works in narrative film and TV, Kelly Fyffe-Marshall was born in England to parents of Jamaican and Bajan heritage. At the age of 11, she moved to Canada, where she’s been a dedicated director, screenwriter and social activist. As a Black woman filmmaker, inspired by coming of age films created by Black auteurs such as Love & Basketball (Gina Prince-Bythewood) and Poetic Justice (John Singleton), Fyffe-Marshall tells stories that disrupt perceptions of Black people, and uplift and mobilize her community. Interested in stories about the Caribbean diaspora and of her Jamaican heritage, her work offers an intimate look into their lives and cultures to a broader audience while simultaneously creating spaces for healing love and unity.

Fyffe-Marshall’s début feature film When Morning Comes (which premiered at TIFF 2022) is a highlight of this year’s coming of age-themed programme celebrating the occasion of TOPS’ 15th anniversary season. A love letter to her family’s Caribbean homelands, the film explores the naiveté of childhood sheltered by a parent’s love, contrasted against the complex emotions that parents experience when making choices that will determine their children’s future.

On her selection as the Spotlight Filmmaker of TOPS’ 2025 When We Were Young programme, Kelly Fyffe-Marshall says, “I've always been captivated by coming-of-age stories and their ability to capture those pivotal moments that shape who we become. When Morning Comes is deeply personal, exploring the quiet heartbreak of leaving home, something I felt when I moved from England to Canada as a child. I wanted to share the Jamaica I know, not the stereotypes, but the love, the warmth, the everyday beauty. At its core, it’s about a mother’s sacrifice and a child’s resilience, that bittersweet space between holding on and letting go.”