Help make The Legend of Black Mexico a thing

My project is a political thriller set in the 16th and 17th centuries--an epic, trans-continental narrative. Only the most historically attuned know this story, and I can think of no one better than me to marshal the facts around a failed effort to enslave into a commercial screenplay.

This would be my second screenplay. Last year the Cali news publishers gave me its top prize for depth reporting. Also in my past are a couple of strong meetings at Hollywood's biggest agency.

Contacts are not my issue. I'm doing this GoFundMe to buy time.

In conversation I've called The Legend of Black Mexico Rambo meets The Woman King, but only because the politics of slavery in "New Spain" are impossible for most to wrap their thinking around.

A film treatment is in development. I've dialed in on a firm script draft deadline of May, 2025.

Ideally, this cinematic narrative built around clever escaped slave Gaspar Yanga will become a valuable piece of media later next year. Mexico, Gabon, and Portugal are the locales.

My writing plan is to reveal Veracruz--the lush Mexican region ceded to Yanga after his rebel tactics prove too much for the Portuguese slavers and Spanish plantation owners--connecting the Gulf Coast region to both Yanga's West African homeland and Lisbon's power halls.

The narrative under construction is a crowd-pleasing action film, one that illuminates an unlikely set of human alliances forced by the early Atlantic slave trade.

Your contributions would support the project by paying for Final Draft scriptwriting software and, most importantly, providing me with the time to write that only money can buy.

The Legend is the storytelling that I want to be remembered for. Hopefully, you will want to play a part in its creation. If not, please share my project with a curious friend.

(Mural: “La fundación de San Lorenzo de los negros” by José Maximino Contreras Rivas)