Biggest suggestion you can give to an European filmmaker?

I’ll be quick: I’m 23 yo, I’m about to shoot 2 short horror movies (I love horror) and my dream is to make a living out of this, somehow… hopefully directing features. My idea is to bring them to some minor festivals and then upload them on a YT channel (I’ll make one).

Of course, I know it’s insanely hard to do all of this, especially because I live in Italy, which doesn’t really have a movie industry at all, and young people basically get out of here as soon as they can. I’d love to move to the US, make new friends there (I’m fluent in english), go to a film school (they cost a lot of money, tho…), make connections… but everything is so expensive and hardly any 23 yo guy has this disposable income.

The thing I envy the most is this sense of community, of “we know we have a very, very tiny chance to make a living out of this, but we’re still in the US and most known movies usually start from here”.

Thanks in advance.