When It Comes To Representation, Black Canadian Filmmakers Say Gains Are Slow, Steady
According to the Coast Reporter, when Tonya Williams began acting in the late 1970s in Canada, she noticed she was often the only person of colour in the room.
Jobs were few and so she moved to Los Angeles where she booked a little soap called "The Young and The Restless," in which she would star for the next two decades.
As years passed, the London-born, Oshawa, Ont.-raised actor thought often of the Canadian industry and how it seemed to lag when it came to diversity on and off the screen.
And so, in 2000, she launched the Reelworld Film Festival and, a year later, the Reelworld Screen Institute, in hopes of empowering racially diverse talent.
