Misadventures of a Newbie Filmmaker: Raising Money

In October 2021, I was on a call with a Director of Programming from a European broadcaster (small but very interesting for my target audience). He said “I like your concept, I want to spread more awareness about renewable energy. Your project fits perfectly”.

OH MY GOD! It was happening.

Then, he finished the meeting with “I want this for April 2022 and we can’t really fund the project. So you need to find the money.”

While my mind was still dancing, my mouth responded “no problem”.

It couldn’t be that difficult to find funding now that I’ve had a broadcaster, a niche broadcaster, but a broadcaster nonetheless.

Fast forward in March 2022, and I can tell you I wish I could swallow back these “no problem” words.

The Premise

Let’s rewind back to 2020, before COVID started. Like many of you, I had been procrastinating since I was 6 years old. “To become a writer or not become a writer” was a recurrent existential question. For those who have African parents, early on we understood that “working as a writer” is the equivalent of “working to become homeless”. Being a good girl, I studied to get a “proper job”.

But 2020 brought something fresh in the air, i.e decisiveness… at last.

I signed up to Celtx (a free screenwriter software) — I started writing and coming up with ideas. I happened to co-build a renewable energy…