It’s a special thing when you’re able to work collaboratively with a sibling on a project. That’s what sisters Tobi Martin Flemming and Nikki Martin did for a new short film headed to this year’s Halifax Black Film Festival.
The siblings produced a nine-minute film called A Walk In The Sun, which was directed by Martin Flemming and written by Martin.
“It’s been really wonderful. We’ve had this dream of working together for a really long time,” Martin told Global News.
The debut short film tells the story of an interracial couple who see their struggle through a painting.
Jack is the idealist of the couple. Martin Flemming describes him as “very carefree, blue-sky thinker, ‘love conquers all’ kind of ideas.” Eden is the artist who creates the painting and is considered very centred on herself and in the world.
“We start to follow their relationship and kind of see how the world around them is starting to wear down that relationship.… Though they are in the same situations together, they are having vastly different experiences,” Martin Flemming said.
Martin gained the inspiration to write the story for the film in 2020, after the death of George Floyd.
“I started to notice as a person of colour that I often had a slightly different experience than my white friends or my white family in certain situations,” she said.
She wanted to create a story putting two people in that same type of situation to see how they would experience it differently. So, she decided to do it through a love story.
Being able to have a vast space to share different experiences that people of colour have is important to Martin. She acknowledges that “it can be dangerous to group everyone into a single category or to assume they’re the same.”
Both sisters have had similar experiences and never talked about it when they were young. Over the past few years, they have been able to have meaningful conversations about their experiences.
“Because we’re both artists, of course we’re ultimately going to explore that through story,” Martin said.
Martin Flemming is excited to have her and her sister’s work on a main stage.
“It’s thrilling. It’s a bit of a shock, the first time I saw it on the big screen was at the Atlantic Film Festival and it’s been at several (festivals) since then.… It’s kind of an honour to see it on the screen,” Martin Flemming said.
She remarked how nice it feels to have that moment to recognize all the work the cast and crew put into the film.
The sisters say they have received funding for script development to eventually turn Jack and Eden’s story into a feature-length film.
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