Financing Your Film

This two-hour workshop explains the different funding options for financing your film production.

RABIYA MANSOOR Rabiya Mansoor (she/they) is a Pakistani-Calgarian comedian, writer, actor, producer, and recovering lawyer. She’s helped develop shows at CBC Gem, 9 Story, Big Bad Boo, and more. She’s a writer for Wildbrain's Strawberry Shortcake: Berry in the Big City, Shaftsbury Kid's POV:Me, and story coordinated for the upcoming Du Me a Favor (Crave/New Metric Media). Her web series projects in development include: Get Up, Aisha (iThentic/Window Dreams Productions) and Sexcapades (Adani Pictures). Her mockumentary project, Layla is Relevant, was a 2021 Breakthroughs Film Festival Pitch Competition Finalist and JFL ComedyPro Stand Up & Pitch Finalist. Her sketch comedy troupe, the Don Valley Girls, received a Sketch Comedy Project Fund grant for their upcoming first sketch revue (WhyNot Theatre's RISER 2022 Festival) and she was a member of the Second City Family Company for What the Elf?!. She is an alumnus of Second City’s Bob Curry Fellowship for emerging, diverse comedic voices and has performed at the Toronto, Chicago, and Montreal Sketch Comedy Festivals, most recently as a drag king solo act. She has participated in playwright units at Expect Theatre, Driftwood Theatre, and Tarragon Theatre and her play, A Jam Kind of Day, was digitally staged in Driftwood Theatre’s Digital Short Play Festival in Fall 2021. Her TYA improv show, Education Know-It-All, was commissioned for Theatre Direct’s 2021 Forward March Festival and she is a graduate of the BIPOC TV & Film Kids TV Bootcamp. If you got this far, her bank password is Yugioh!.

SHREYA PATEL Shreya Patel is a model-turned actress, filmmaker, writer, and a mental health advocate. She's the graduate of the Second City Conservatory and can be seen perform improv and sketch comedy around the City of Toronto. Shreya has appeared in lead roles in numerous films, theatre productions, and most recently in Netflix's Grand Army, and FX's Mrs. America. Her first film role in Vivid helped garner the film multiple award nominations. Her directorial debut, the documentary “Girl Up”, about domestic violence and human trafficking, has been picked up by the Toronto International Film Festival to partner and showcase the film at the 2019 Civic Action Summit. During this pandemic, she has gathered 66 countries on 6 continents and made a documentary called Unity showcasing the plight of the human spirit. It was the closing film at the Unified Filmmakers - Munich Film Festival. Following the release of Unity, Shreya remotely directed a music video called Freedom Dance by Faynyx with got over 1.2 million views on YouTube. Rolling Stone India reported about it. She is a honoree of Forbes 30 Under 30, Top 100 Most Powerful Women of Canada, Top 25 Canadian Immigrant Awards, and Women’s Achiever Award.