This story was created in paid partnership with Toronto Film School.
Toronto Film School (TFS) – one of The Hollywood Reporter’s 2025 Best International Film Schools — recently invited Canadian Screen Award-winning actor Amanda Brugel (The Handmaid’s Tale, Kim’s Convenience) to sit down with Michelle Daly, the Director of TFS’s Writing for Film & TV program, and more recent Hollywood North entrants (and TFS alumni) Garima Sood, Maxine Clement, Robyn Alomar, and Christina Borgs for a Women in Film Roundtable.
Over 90 minutes of conversation and dim sum, they swapped stories of the inspirations and challenges facing women in the screen industries today. Together, they revisited the formative “light bulb” moments that sparked their careers, examined the mixed blessings of industry “advice,” debated the rise of AI and offered practical ideas for making Toronto’s $2 billion-a-year creative industry (which employs nearly 240,000 people nationwide), more inclusive.
The heart of the exchange, however, revolved around three intertwined — and deeply empowering — themes.
Toronto Film School’s recent roundtable discussion, Women in Film and TV, highlighted the school’s commitment to supporting Canadian talent and empowering women in the screen industries. The event featured notable TFS alumni alongside Canadian Screen Award-winning actor, producer, and writer Amanda Brugel — best known for her roles in The Handmaid’s Tale, Dark Matter and Kim’s Convenience, among others. Pictured (from left): Garima Sood, Amanda Brugel, Robyn Alomar, Christina Borgs, and Maxine Clement. Photo by: Katja de Bourbon
The Power of Representation
The women took turns recounting the big screen moments that helped shape their careers, their courage and their drive to rewrite the rules of the industry.
- Linda Hamilton’s pull‑up scene in Terminator 2 blew young Brugel’s mind: “She wasn’t sexy. She was sweaty, gritty, powerful and strong.… I saw her and thought, ‘Whatever that is, that’s me.’”
- Alomar (2017 Acting for Film, TV & the Theatre grad/actor Utopia Falls, Terror Train), likewise drew inspiration from the “badass women” who populated Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill and Death Proof. “It was just so great to see women in these cool, strong, badass kind of roles usually occupied by men.”
- Clement (2018 Writing for Film & TV grad/Fubar, The Umbrella Academy), meanwhile, credits Netflix’s Sense8 — and Jamie Clayton’s trans heroine — for giving her the strength to come out. “That’s why diversity on screen is so, so important — because all it takes is just moment to change your life.”
Education as Empowerment
The second through‑line was the crucial role education played in shaping the careers of the women at the roundtable — particularly those of the TFS alumni.
For Garima Sood, a 2018 Acting for Film, TV & the Theatre grad, her journey into the industry was driven by a desire to be on set.
“I just knew I wanted to be a part of that world as soon as I could,” said the aspiring-actor-turned-camera-operator (Ginny & Georgia, Sort Of), noting that her time at TFS provided the foundational knowledge she needed to transition smoothly into the camera department, from set lingo to gear basics. “It laid a really strong foundation.”
Sood said she also remains in touch with her TFS mentors — and it’s the advice of Acting instructor Andrew Moodie that continues to resonate with her to this day: “The sky’s the limit — don’t be afraid to reach higher.”
Christina Borgs, a 2018 Film Production grad, echoed Sood’s sentiment, crediting TFS for helping launch her professional career. Prior to enrolling, Borgs was working side jobs in graphic design and at a racetrack. It wasn’t until she joined TFS that she realized she could transform her passion for film into a career in the camera department.
“Toronto Film School was the first time I realized that I could make a career out of this fun passion I have,” said Borgs, whose recent projects include Guillermo del Toro’s upcoming Frankenstein.
“I was a more mature student coming into TFS, so I came with a different mindset. I made school my professional career, and that built the foundation to build my art.”
Turning Fear Into Fuel
The most animated section of the roundtable tackled the some of the spectacularly bad advice each of the women have received throughout their careers — and how they transformed them into a drive to succeed.
- Brugel, then a newcomer, was once told by a Black director to keep her hair “straight and luscious.… Nobody wants a nappy-haired girl.” The comment “imprinted” on the then-impressionable young artist for years. But after a chance to confront the director decades later, the experience became cathartic proof to Brugel of how far industry attitudes — and her own confidence — had evolved.
- Alomar was similarly advised by an acting colleague to “tone down” her outspoken personality on set, but decided that, for her, authenticity was non‑negotiable because “they hired me exactly as I am.”
- Sood was once warned she had “maybe five years” before motherhood would likely spell the end of her camera career. She now cites Canadian cinematographer and director of photography Maya Bankovic—who was pregnant while working on a production—as evidence that “women can and do thrive at every stage of life.”
After sharing their stories, veteran Brugel encouraged the other women not to worry much about such “fear-based” advice.
“As artists and as women, we worry too much.… But all of that energy you’re spending worrying, all you’re doing is worshiping the problem,” she advised. “So, every time you find yourself doing that, worship something else — worship the good part of you, worship your dreams, worship the energy that you want to put into making something successful.”
Looking Forward
As dim sum wrapped up, the women each shared a one-word forecast: “The future of women in the creative industry is…”
Alomar: “Limitless.”
Clement: “Thriving.”
Sood: “Looking good.”
Brugel: “Not a trend.”
Borgs: “Innovation.”
Those collective answers echoed the roundtable’s core lesson: representation sparks ambition, mentorship converts ambition into craft, and resilience turns obstacles into momentum.
Together, they chart a future for women in film that, indeed, looks limitless.
