Fresh out of film school, Kayode George is focused on a future where the industry is a lot more inclusive.

The 22-year-old has made it her goal to put Black narratives at the forefront of her storytelling and filmography.

Her short film Outcasted, which explores industry challenges faced by a dark-skinned actress, earned her the Achievement in Screenwriting Award at the TorontoMet Film Festival last year.

It’s now travelling the film festival circuit, and was featured in a showcase of emerging Black directors, actors, and screenwriters at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute last month.

Kayode hopes this is just the beginning of a long career in the industry but, with a range of skills under her belt, she is still exploring which path to take.

She created Outcasted as her final-year thesis. Students at Toronto Metropolitan University were invited to write, direct or produce an original piece of work or showcase their skills in cinematography, editing, production or another specialisation.

Although more familiar with editing, Kayode decided to make a film.

“I wanted to leave something of myself [for the school] to remember [me by],” she explained.

The problem was she had spent a semester in her third year in Madrid, Spain on an exchange programme and missed out on critical information given to the students still on campus in Toronto, Canada.

In September 2023 she was shocked to return to school and discover she had a week to come up with the idea for a script.

“I missed [that] semester and they'd obviously been briefed. Many people in my class were writing stuff all summer [meanwhile] I'm like, ‘Oh no, I don't have anything!’.”

Kayode came up with a story she thought might work: four Black actresses, each navigating a different industry challenge.

“So I wrote that. And then my professor was like, ‘That's too long. There's too many. Pick one.’ So that's how Outcasted originally came to be. I picked the dark-skinned actresses’ issues.

“We had to pitch our original ideas in a week. But then, I think we got two months to [work on] the script. So it was originally the four girls, and then it was one, and then it was just writing, writing, writing.”

According to its synopsis, Outcasted is about “a self-affirming Black actress [who] must face the challenge of auditioning for a breakout role that she is considered too dark for”.

“In my pitch for Outcasted, I put the pictures of five Black actresses under the age of 40 on the screen and asked if the panel of judges could name them. None of them could.

“While there are many Black women in film, our stories are not reaching mainstream level or getting the deserved amount of attention that stories of other races receive,” Kayode said.

“In addition, the process of getting funding and distribution for films is harder than ever, as the film industry is now looking for social notoriety.

“Does this actress have more than one million followers on Instagram? How can we get this film promo to go viral? Things like that have become barriers to everybody, but especially to emerging Black talent.”

“So yes I do think Black narratives are not being told enough, and that is why I hope to centre them in my films going forward.”

She thinks her interest in filmmaking started with the films of family trips she would edit as a young child.

She attended Purvis Primary School and then Warwick Academy, where she studied film as part of the International Baccalaureate programme.

Only then did the idea hit that she could continue her studies to degree level. Accepted into the programme at Toronto Metropolitan, she was saddened when the Covid-19 pandemic forced her first year online.

“So, I was here in Bermuda during Covid. But then I did, obviously, four years at TMU, and I finished last year. I graduated last June.”

Including credits, Outcasted runs for 13 minutes. Kayode appears on-screen as an extra.

“We held auditions because that was part of the grade,” she said. “A lot of women sent in their audition tapes, but she was the youngest, and my idea for the character was that she was young, and then on top of that, she was the only person that came in person to audition.”

The casting decision felt right, and production quickly fell into place.

“I'm so glad I did it. The people [whose thesis was built around] cinematography or editing, they had to work on at least two films.

“You get more under your belt but that route sort of narrows you down, whereas this route, I'm glad I did but I'm kind of in the stage of where I actually don't know what I want to do,” she said.

At the moment she is “jotting down ideas” mindful that she would like to continue writing and directing – though perhaps as a side pursuit.

A big dream of Kayode’s is to share Bermuda’s stories and produce work here, but finding the financing for films is an issue.

“Bermudian culture is so enriched by its history, so I believe a lot of narrative or documentary films could be found through the stories that people are willing to share.

“For example, I think a Downton Abbey style show set in 1950s Bermuda tackling segregation, class and culture would be really cool. It's ideas like that that I always have in the back of my mind,” she said.

At the moment, however, Kayode and many of her university friends are unemployed.

“The issue is the Toronto job market is so competitive. With that free time, I do have time to write new stories, which I appreciate, but I do want a job. So I'm in Toronto, looking for work. But like I said, it's so competitive. You'll apply for something and there will be 200 other people applying.”

She was thrilled to have the opportunity to show her work here, where the audience had a deeper cultural connection with the film.

“My class at university was predominantly white. So very often the critiques they were giving, I was like, ‘I'll take it with a grain of salt. You're not like my target audience; you don't understand.

“So then showing it at BUEI, where there were mainly Black women in the audience, I was like, ‘Yes, this is who it's for.’ If anything, it was the best audience I've had so far.”