General advice for making it as a film music composer

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Maybe some community knowledge can be of help not only for me, as I think /mu/ is one of the wisest boards of 4chan.

I studied music for more than 10 years, been doing music for advertising and occasionally short films for around 10 as well, and now I'm 34 and trying to focus my career into film music because advertising is usually not very enjoyable.

Advertising is unstable and film is (for what I think) kind of a close circuit where you are only relevant when your work has been on a feature film that also has been relevant. I had a friend who made the soundtrack of a relatively known film in my country and after that he got contacted for more work, but still he's not confident work will keep coming.

I'm in Spain, which I know is something important to take into consideration, but still there are probably some general ideas to get there. At the moment I am:

- Contacting directors of award-winning short films that suit what I'd like to do, because directors at this stage are sometimes close into going for a feature movie, in which budget is usually enough to make something decent, in other words, no sound libraries and paid.

- Making music for music libraries like Envato, to see if I can have a little income to help pay the rent.

- Still contacting advertising agencies to offer my services.

What I think I lack here is personal contact, but it's not like you can meet in person a film director or an art director from an agency like some kind of tinder, or it's not like having a band, in which case you can meet other bands in concerts to be part of a scene. Except that one friend who kind of made it, I know no one in this business to know if there are things I should be doing. And my friend made it because a lucky strike, so it's not of help.

At the moment I am sacrificing everything to get this because this is the only thing I see myself doing, but I'm struggling with money and any shared wisdom to use the best of my time would be very appreciated.