As Screen Scotland doubled its development investment earlier this summer with the launch of its £1.2 million ($1.6 million) Talent Builder scheme, the move was welcomed as a timely expansion of early-career support. Aimed at nurturing emerging voices, the initiative built on the agency’s longstanding emphasis on script development and short-form funding.

“We just want to give people more opportunity,” Kieran Hannigan, head of scripted at Screen Scotland , tells Variety . “People’s practice evolves, their taste evolves, their skill evolves. And we want to give the space to grow and showcase what they’re able to do.”

Yet inevitably, there will never be enough public money to go around.

A growing wave of filmmakers, frequently working in collectives, sometimes alone, is turning awa

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