By Meghan Power
Being part of the program included funding and distribution of a short documentary film on CBC Gem. The resources offered through the program helped support Kamika through the processes of writing, directing and producing her first documentary — Finding My Way Back to You, a ten-minute short about her relationship with her father, his mental illness, his struggles with houselessness, and a restraining order that kept them legally separated for over a decade.
Sharing her and her father’s story is important to Kamika and the work she is doing through the Walker Foundation; a foundation she started to help foster compassion and kindness, to eradicate judgement towards those who are struggling with mental illness and houselessness in Calgary, through education. “Over 900 million people world-wide are impacted by mental illness. My hope is the work that I’m doing will help reveal the intricacies of living with a mental illness and how it impacts families. I see people in the street struggling — with no shelter or food — no kindness or love. I see this film as also helping to bring all stories to the spotlight. To get people to think about how we treat our unhoused. We cannot continue to treat those struggling with houselessness like they are the bottom of the barrel — not worth our care and attention.
“As a young Black woman, in film living in Calgary, Alberta there are significantly less resources available to me. Having the financial backing of CADA has opened doors to funding from other granting bodies outside the province. CADA’s support has given me the confidence I need to take on this challenge of making this feature-length documentary and to go out and pitch my story. It’s also allowed me to pay myself an equitable artist fee while I am working on this film. It changes things to be seen and recognized as a professional artist. To have the support and validation from an organization like CADA, makes me feel like I can actually do this and I can do it here, in Alberta.”
For Kamika it’s also important that CADA has stepped up and is engaged in being part of Black artist spaces in Calgary and across the province. “CADA has shown that they are open, as an organization, to learning more about how they can better support Black artists.” Kamika calls on CADA and other Alberta-based funders to do more to fund Black and Indigenous artists — to help them share and uplift their stories through their art. “These are the stories that make up the fabric of Calgary and Alberta, and we need continued funding from granting bodies like CADA to help make it happen.”