First of all, could you introduce yourself and your work to our readers?
My name is Alex Kayode-Kay and I'm a writer, director, producer, and actor. My best known work is probably a BAFTA-nominated short film called The Ballad of Olive Morris, which is about a Brixton activist who unfortunately died very young in the 1970s.
Could you tell me a little bit about the Young Black Filmmakers Fund and the competition that you're helping to run?
The Young Black Filmmakers Fund is essentially an idea I came up with based on my own experiences as a young – well, I'm less young these days – but as a young Black filmmaker in the UK. It's just really hard for any filmmaker of any background, gender, or colour to be supported and get funding, but particularly coming up as a young Black filmmaker, I just found it hard to get those pots of funding needed to make shorts that are capable of getting into major festivals to take your career to the next level.
This is also something that I've talked about with actual young Black filmmakers in recent years. They are always there and they have all the talent, all the energy, all the drive in the world, and the creativity, but the money's not there.
I worked with the London Breeze Film Festival last year and did some judging for their short film competition. That went well. Two of the shorts I selected were BAFTA longlisted and one of them was nominated, so they must have thought I had decent judgment. After that, Sam Cullis – who's the director of London Breeze Film Festival – asked if I wanted to do anything more with the festival. I said it has to be something I feel passionate about, so I mentioned I'd like to create a film fund for young Black filmmakers – to make that journey a little bit easier for them, or easier than it was for me anyway.
On the back of that, we started reaching out to sponsors. I sent an email to TikTok describing my own journey as a filmmaker and saying why I wanted to do this, and why I thought it was a good idea. Luckily they got back to us quite quickly – within a few weeks – and said yes. Then we were rolling.
The involvement of TikTok must be really exciting, particularly because it's such an important tool for young creatives of any kind – but filmmakers, especially.
Absolutely 100%. I couldn't think of a more ideal partner or sponsor for this initiative. Their reach is obviously that of one of the biggest brands on the planet. That goes without saying. It's an app that's very predicated on appealing to young people, so it's just a perfect synergy of support. I'm really grateful that they're on board for the first edition of the Young Black Filmmakers Fund. I hope and expect this to last for many, many years. I want it to be a proper resource that's pretty much a staple in this industry.And if any of those potential filmmakers who might want to take part are reading this, how does the actual process of the competition work?
Basically, we expect there to be like a filmmaking team because, obviously, making any film is hard. And especially when you're young, you want that support. So we want it to be a team of a producer, a director, and a writer and at least the writer and director have to be of Black origin. This is a very specific fund to support a very specific underrepresented background of filmmakers. We expect at least one of that team to be between the ages of 18 to 30. The actual competition will be open for submissions from 1st May and you’ll be able to do that through My SMASH Media and the London Breeze Film Festival website.
What is it that people get at the end of it? What's the prize?
Joy. But aside from that, aside from pleasure or happiness, it’s up to £10,000 of funding to make what we hope to be a very high-level short film. So basically, you’ve got to submit your short film script and, once the script is submitted, it'll be whittled down to a shortlist of finalists. Then you get to pitch it at the London Breeze Film Festival in October, and then a group of judges will decide the winner.
Then you get the goodies. There’s obviously cash in terms of the budget, but there's also other sponsors working to provide resources, such as software from Adobe and the poster of the film will be designed by The Dream Factory. There’s gonna be mentorship provided by myself, so it’s a lot to support the growth of young, Black filmmakers in this country.
And as someone now who is established, what is it that drives you to pass on your experience with mentorship and taking part in things like this?
I could say civic duty. Generally speaking, it's just having been in that place and not necessarily had an easy route to go through. Denzel Washington says a lot that you’ve got to use what gifts you have and give back, because we've only got one life to live. That's a good philosophy to live by. I'm kind of fortunate, but I’m out there trying to make a debut feature film now – and it's not easy. It's not easy at all.
But by the same token, I'm still in a better position than a lot of other filmmakers because of the success some of my shorts managed to achieve. So because I'm in a position where I can send an email to TikTok, and they can take me seriously, I'm going to use that.
Alex Kayode-Kay speaks at the press launch of the Young Black Filmmakers Fund
(Credit: Mark Brennan)
In the short film space, what are the challenges of getting stuff made and, on the other side of the coin, the challenges of getting stuff seen?
Yeah, it's incredibly difficult. Again, I've been fortunate enough to make a couple of very successful short films, but I’ve never actually once received official funding from one of the major film funding bodies. They get a lot of people asking for it, so you can't take it personally. But to be able to have this [fund] as another added resource, specifically, it helps young Black directors and writers. So at the end of the day, it's a net benefit for everyone.
But yeah, in the short film space it's very difficult. I haven't made a feature film yet, but I've been told by a lot of people who have done both that making a short is harder in many ways, because there's fewer resources. There's less support a lot of the time. There's very few hands on deck to actually make things happen. The short I did that was nominated for a BAFTA, from conception to writing the script to actually gaining funding, and making it took almost five years. It took a while.
It's a challenge and you’ve got to be in it for the love of the game. You can't be in it thinking “I'm going to get rich out of this” or “I'm going to get famous”. It don't work like that. I’ve been at this for going on 13 years since I finished film school and it was a struggle. I've had to do part-time jobs and find a way to get by to get the next project made. The struggle is very, very real. So hopefully a fund like this will give an avenue for a lot of people who don't think there's necessarily an easy option for them.
If I'm a young black filmmaker and I've got a lot of creativity and ideas, but it's just there's no direct funding for me, then maybe this is a potential fund you can apply for. And obviously there's only so much of a pot to go around. But again, I do actually hope that as the years progress with a fund like this, that we get more funding to be able to support more films, more shorts, and potentially at some point it'll be big enough to support feature filmmaking as well. It's just something I'm really excited about and I really think it has limitless potential in terms of growth. I hope that there’s a lot more to come.
You can find out more about Alex Kayode-Kay on his Instagram page and learn more about the Young Black Filmmakers Fund here.
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