Toronto Thrive: Building a physical community for Toronto creatives

Thrive is currently run by co-founder Christine Ung and Defne Yildirim, the Marketing and Partnerships Lead. Recently, I had the opportunity to speak to Yildirim to learn more about how Toronto Thrive operates and what it does for the community. 

Yildirim described Thrive as “An art collective that specializes in creating physical spaces where artists of different kinds can come out and play … and promotes gender equality in the film industry”. 

Toronto Thrive first began in 2020 by a group of TMU students from the Ted Rogers School of Management as a way to help their friends showcase their work during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Thrive has grown and evolved since that point and now focuses on bringing artists together in person through workshops and events. These workshops help attendees build skills, engage with professionals and support the organization’s overall mission of advancing gender equity in these industries.

Toronto Thrive most recently hosted the workshop Pivot: The Ultimate Guide to Indie Film Making in December 2025. The workshop was led by independent filmmaker Luke Villemaire alongside lawyer and producer Sheetal Maya Nanda. This was the final of a five-part series of cinematography and production workshops.

Yildirim discussed how the team at Toronto Thrive has grown its reach through connections with various industry organizations. Toronto Thrive has collaborated with the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees Women (IATSE Women) and the Canadian Society of Cinematographers (CSC). 

Working with these organizations has also given Toronto Thrive greater access to industry professionals, facilitating the workshops they hold. Yildirim said, “It was really important to us that we were able to bring people who were industry vets who could really represent our cause well and display why it’s important to have equity within the industry.”

Yildirim emphasized the importance of having physical spaces to host these events and gave a shout-out to both Fieldwork and Adaptavist for allowing them to host events there. Yildirim said, “I’m trying to find the right words to express how grateful we are … none of the work that we do could have been done without a space that believes in us”. 

Toronto Thrive emphasizes affordability and accessibility for attendees at their events, a factor that sets them apart from other organizations. 

“There are a lot of film workshops out there, especially in Toronto … and they’re not very accessible in terms of price point,” said Yildirim. Our main goal was that we were able to self-sustain so that we could bring these more accessible areas.”

In addition to hosting in-person events, Toronto Thrive engages with the community by highlighting the work of local artists on their Instagram account, @torontothrive. Highlighting these creatives helps to grow their audience and allows their hard work to be seen by more people. 

“I think it’s really important that we know what’s going on in the city, and we know who is working to create something for themselves in the city,” Yildirim said. 

When asked about the future of Toronto Thrive, Yildirim said their goal is to keep building, “It doesn’t have to be that profound always; sometimes the profundity comes from building.” 

• art
• community
• culture