Wandsworth Women’s Enterprise Day
Wandsworth Womens Enterprise Day is one of my favourite local events of the year. It is held at Roehampton Club and it is super well organised by Jenni Asiama. There is always excellent food and a range of fascinating women that are at different stages of their entrepreneur journey. Last year, in 2023 I was privileged enough to win the Entrepreneur of the Day Award. This year I was back as a panel member, sitting with some very well regarded women business leaders including fashion guru; Karen Millen, Holly Scarsella, Pampelone Clothing, Cassandra Liu, CHA DONG and Sama Trinder, Co-Owner of Bingham Riverhouse
I find it interesting how people often are intrigued by my previous roles before setting up Chocolate Films. One question asked of me was how did you manage to set up a production company when you had originally done a law degree and worked in corporate finance?
The truth is that like many young people, even today, I wasn't sure how to find out about the jobs I could do using my passion for creativity. So I listened to my strict Jewish Dad and did a postgraduate degree at the University of Law and then got what my immigrant parents' thought to be ‘a proper job’. My first job was in the city in Corporate Finance. It was hard work, but this was a good job that paid well. But it wasn’t for me. So, I started making short films in the evenings and at weekends. It was before digital and before phones could create video or even photos!If your film wasn’t on TV, in the cinemas or in a plastic box on the shelves of Blockbuster it probably wasn’t going to be seen.
I self funded my first film; ‘Shim Sham’. It is about a Jamaican superstition, never give shoes to a lover otherwise they are sure to walk out on you. During this time I made another two short films, Heyday about an elderly mixed race couple that built a time machine and Girl on a cycle, a golden age of cinema screwball comedy about a young woman's menstruation. Right from the start, I had a passion for sharing my own unique perspective of the world, as a mixed race woman. With my city job and my filmmaking, I was working around the clock, so I was desperate to turn my hobby into my full time occupation.
I sent my CV to everyone in the media industry in London. I had a 2.1 from an excellent university and a postgraduate in law but rather than looking attractive, it made my CV appear too varied and my interests too diverse. Its still hard for organisations to see transferable skills and to accept people that don't fit into one box, so it's no surprise I had to carve my own journey in life. Luckily I found a brilliant creative partner to come on the journey with me. In 2002 with no investment money, no real filmmaking experience and no equipment, Mark Currie and I set up Chocolate Films.
Another question someone asked was why did you set up Chocolate Films as a social enterprise? Not realising how challenging launching a video production company was, Mark and I decided to add another level of difficulty. We thought it would be cool to build a video production company that gave back to our local community, in the form of workshops for children and young people who otherwise would not have the opportunity. We have grown and developed Chocolate Films alongside Chocolate Films Workshops for over 22 years now. Its still difficult but it is also still our vision to engage, support and inspire others to creative video content, express themselves through film and have the opportunity to be part of the creative industry. It was too hard for me to break into the industry so we built our own production company and have now been accepted into the industry!
You can find out more about Wandsworth Women’s Enterprise Day here:
https://wandsworthenterprisehub.com/events/event/womens-enterprise-day-2024/
