The first money

Nobody funds a first feature from a script alone. The money arrives in a sequence, and the sequence is the same almost every time.

The sequence

1. Your own money or a short. Something finished that shows you can finish things. A ten-minute film that works beats a hundred pages that might.
2. A development grant. Small, regional, applied for with the short as evidence.
3. A market or lab. This is where a producer or a co-producer appears. It rarely happens any other way.
4. A co-production fund, applied for jointly, once the partner exists.
5. Post-production support, because the budget will be short by the time you get there. It always is.

What breaks the sequence

Skipping step three. Directors who apply straight to the large funds with no producer attached are declined, reapply the following year, and lose two years to a step that a four-day market would have solved.

When money does arrive from abroad, read getting paid first — receiving it is its own problem.