You’ve got a huge vision for a creative, project, you know you have the skills, and you get fantastic feedback – and then all the people in positions of power try to change everything about it. What do you do? You go and build a community of the people who do believe in it.

Filmmaker Elena Rossini spent 8 years making her critically acclaimed film on the global beauty industry, The Illusionsists, 6 of those with nothing but rejections.

We talk about how TV studios told her they loved what she was doing – but wanted to replace her with a man. How they wanted to replace all the experts and thinkers so important to her with celebrities instead. How the film festivals rejected her continually. And how she found her own path to building, crowdfunding and launching a film that has been shown around the world, and which has put her on international stages as a guest and speaker.

There’s so much other great stuff too, including:

The business she launched within 24 hours

How she attracted interest from high-profile celebrities to support The Illusionists, including Stephen Fry

How she used Twitter to build a community that supported her at every step – from introductions to funding

How women are continually underrepresented in film, and Elena’s determination to change it

Click to view: show page on Awesound