What Happens When Your Dreams Come True
It all started when I was sexually harassed at my job.
In a moment of rebellion, and on a quest to hear more stories about women surviving their careers I launched a feminist storytelling blog called Feminist Wednesday. Inspired by the women I was meeting through the blog (especially the ones who were starting their own companies), I quit my job.
I decided to take a leap and follow my big dream to make a documentary. I centered it around the incredible women entrepreneurs I was meeting. In the summer of 2014 I raised $104K in 30 days on Kickstarter to produce Dream, Girl.
And the rest as they say is herstory.
The film was an instant indie mash hit.
The Dream, Girl team & crew at The White House, on set with Marie Forloe, meeting Oprah.
Before we even premiered, Oprah named my production partner Komal Minhas and I part of her SuperSoul100. A group of folks who were creating work for social good alongside such powerhouses as Lin Manuel Miranda, Gabby Bernstien, and Ava DuVernay. Two months before the film’s final cut was locked in we flew out to California to meet the other members of the list, and Oprah herself.
Thanks to a connection we made through our Kickstarter, we premiered the film at Obama’s White House. We filled the south court auditorium with the women in the film and their families, and I got to the screening three hours early because I’ve never been so nervous in my entire life.
Then on June 9th, 2016 we had to a sold out screening with 600 people at the Paris theater in New York City. That night we dance on the rooftop of the Rivington Hotel Bar on the Lower East Side.
Wearing Mariama’s white silk jumpsuit for the premiere of the film, taking the subway to the Paris Theater, seeing our film on the marquee for the first time.
My small distribution team and I sold over 500 screening events to countries all over the world. For two years after our launch, I traveled and spoke alongside the film in places like Belgium, Dubai, Egypt, and Tajikistan.
Speaking opportunities alongside the film.
In 2018 I was photographed for Apple’s ‘Behind the Mac’ campaign, and an image of me in front of my trusty MacBook Air with a Dream, Girl sticker on it, was plastered on bus stops and subway stations across Brooklyn. I felt like the documentary Carrie Bradshaw. I popped a bottle of campaign at the Atlantic Terminal subway station with my team to celebrate.
Behind the Mac campaign in the Atlantic Terminal.
It was an incredible, intense, and exhilarating time. In some ways, it felt like those years went by in the blink of an eye.
Looking back over the last ten years, it’s impossible to condense what that time felt like. But here are a few of the takeaways that resonate with me today about my ‘Dream, Girl’ era.
A lot of success is about luck. I feel like we hit the cultural apex of the girl boss swell and offered real examples of what it looks like at the perfect time. Cultural timing for art is so important, but it’s also mostly out of the artists control.
I had to learn quickly how to tell my own story. People gravitated to the “why” of our film. It wasn’t some big corporation trying to cash in, it was someone within the feminist movement asking questions— and that counted a lot in our audiences eyes.
Being a good filmmaker doesn’t mean you’re a good sales person. I sucked (and hated) getting on sales calls, selling the film, and doing customer service. It was a really hard and uncomfortable process and we made so many mistakes, but I learned a lot.
I was able to pay myself until I wasn’t. I made around $2K a month, paid my team, and rented a WeWork office for about two years after the film was released. But when the money ran out, it was light a light switch went off. It happened over night, and it was devastating. One day we just never made a sale again. It was over. Films are cyclical beasts and once they loose their luster their done.
I lost a lot of friends when the success of the film ended. I magnetized a lot of incredible people and contacts during the success of the film, but was also quick to loose them once the energy of it died down. Some people just want to be along for the fun parts.
Steven Spielberg never called. Maybe this was my naivety in the industry, but I kind of assumed someone would call to help, mentor, or offer me a role on a new project. But it never happened, I had to keep boot-strapping and fundraising to make my next film.
I went $20k into debt trying to fundraising another film and keep my team afloat. Because of the steep ending to our financial security, I scrambled for months to keep my team together while trying to fundraise for a new film. Unfortunately, after two or three failed attempts I had to let my two-person team go and focus on getting myself out of debt.
Five years later I made another film. After I got myself out of debt, I got pregnant and was inspired to create a film about my postpartum experience. I raised $15K and made Year One about surviving the first year of motherhood. Year One premiered online during the COVID pandemic on Motherly’s social media platforms.
I still get asked (occasionally) to speak alongside Dream, Girl. Last summer, an incredible woman named Danielle Martorana brought me out to Illinois for a screening of the film. It was almost like I was walking back in time.
In my heart, I know one day I’ll make another film. If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you know I’ve started and stopped a few film projects over the years after the release of Year One.
Not all seeds root, but filmmaking is in my bones. It’s my favorite way to tell a story. One day I’ll move past the fear of “what ifs” and take the leap again. As Clara VillaRosa says at the end of Dream, Girl:
“And you can start, and you can feel scared— and thats okay. Every time you start something it’s okay to feel scared. And it is scary, it’s not easy. It’s alright to feel scared.
But it doesn’t mean you don’t do it.”