The Coastal Institute catalyst grant enabled me to put together a panel of advisers to meet to clarify our film’s focus, resolve some issues, and remove topics from the project that were outside of the scope of the film treatment for a feature-length film documenting women fishing commercially in Southern New England and their impact on the economy, culture, and regional identity of the industry. That panel, as was initially proposed, was a mix of fishermen, scholars, filmmakers, etc. We also used some of the Coastal Institute funding to hire a film budget expert and an archival researcher to help us understand how to realistically prepare a budget for the film and plan for the historical film footage that will be used. The result was a submission to the Rhode Island Council for Humanities.

The Rhode Island Council for the Humanities has a special category of grants for documentary film projects, and that’s the category where we submitted this project, which was successfully funded. We used the funds to further film and interview some of the women at the core of the film. The ultimate product has been a thoroughly revised and updated series of texts that are being used to apply for further funding. The same financing was also used to edit film samples that will be used in pursuit of additional funding to continue the project. Some of the funds were used to pay consulting editors to review the samples that we put together.