Turning Donations Into Fireflies for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation

A bright idea in more ways than one

How do you show the impact of a donation? Not just where it goes, but what happens when it joins thousands of others? You can show the amount. You can show what it helps fund. But neither really captures the emotion, the hope and the impact that happens when one act of generosity joins thousands of others.

That was the creative challenge behind our new work for the Princess Margaret Cancer Foundation. “Carry the Fire,” a brand platform we launched in 2025, is built around a shared ambition to create a world free from the fear of cancer. This year, we wanted to show that every donation contributes to something bigger. Together, those gifts help fuel research, treatment and care at one of the world’s leading cancer hospitals.

We wanted people to feel like part of that progress, instead of spectators watching it happen.

So, we needed to give generosity a physical form. That’s where the fireflies came in.

There’s something inherently hopeful about a firefly. On its own, it’s a tiny point of light. Bring enough of them together and the effect changes completely. Suddenly you have something luminous and powerful.

More importantly, fireflies gave us a way to tell the story of where that generosity goes. It all begins with a contribution that’s personal and meaningful. That gift helps the foundation’s renown Cancer Centre, promoting broader change and innovation. In the end, perhaps, it helps us all.

In the film, directed by Jason van Bruggen of Suneeva, people across Canada discover individual fireflies and begin collecting them. We deliberately chose locations that felt geographically agnostic to make the gathering more national in scope; these are individual acts of generosity coming from all corners and they converging at Princess Margaret’s.

Once there, the fireflies are released.

They move through patient rooms, treatment spaces and research labs. You can see those individual points of light flowing into the work that donor support helps fuel. By the time they emerge from the Cancer Centre and fill the night sky, it’s clear that many individual contributions have strengthened the collective good.

Ultimately, we had to make something metaphorical feel real.

On set, Jason and team built custom lighting rigs that could be programmed on the fly to bloom and flicker just like fireflies. The tiny filaments were suspended on rods, giving people a real point of light to react to while casting a glow on their faces and surroundings. That practical light gave the team at Motomotus a foundation to build from in VFX, helping keep the magic connected to the physical world.

We filmed inside the Cancer Centre overnight, working around a place that, unlike a set, never really stops. That sense of reality mattered. Real researchers and staff took part, including our MRI operator and the scientist using the cryogenic tube.

All of it served one simple idea: Every light matters. Every donation is part of something bigger.

We wanted viewers to understand that when you donate, you’re not watching progress happen from the sidelines. You’re helping drive it forward.

That’s what “Carry the Fire” is ultimately about. When we come together, we can help fuel the research, discoveries and care that bring us closer to a world free from the fear of cancer.

Related: Inside a Dazzling Canadian Campaign Designed to Put Cancer on the Run