Still looking for an Internship? A Duke alum has one to offer.

Documentary Production Company Seeking Intern to Assist Director/Producer

Dewdrop Films, LLC is seeking a spring intern who will assist documentary filmmaker Maital Guttman in the promotion, marketing, and distribution of her documentary film, Mechina: A Preparation. Maital is touring with the film to college campuses, high schools, and film festivals across the country, and the intern will help with the behind the scenes work, gaining first-hand experience into the world of a successful independent film. This is a wonderful learning experience and is appropriate for a hard-working and creative student interested in directly seeing the result of his/her internship.

Activities Will Include:

• Promoting the film and helping with bookings of the nation-wide tour
  
• Producing a Los Angeles Premiere of the film, including booking a theater, securing press coverage, and promoting the screening
• Submitting to film festivals
• Organizing a press kit
• Managing contact list and help keep in touch with key people
• Creating three short documentary podcast updates from the road
• Attending, if appropriate, some screenings and film festivals, assisting Maital on the road
• Researching best ways to sell an independent film, with the various options (ie distributor, online, etc)

What You Will Learn:

• Production- how to make an independent documentary film
• Promotion – how to promote the film and yourself as a filmmaker; how to reach your target audience; how to generate buzz
• Fundraising – researching various avenues, from foundations, grants, and individuals
• “The Business”- legalities, including music rights, LLC/non-profit formation
• Hiring people - When and how to contract outside help including a music supervisor, sound engineer, editors, designers
• Networking
• Finding ally organizations and key people
• Film festival submissions and press kits
• Utilizing resources at Duke and beyond

About the Film:

Mechina: A Preparation is a 50 minute documentary film that explores the lives of six Israeli teens before the army, as they transition from students to soldiers. It began as a Duke senior project and eventuall­y sno­wballed into a nation-wide tour where more than 10,000 people have already viewed the film. The film aims to not blame one side or another, but rather to show the life of young Israelis, reconciling their ideals for peace with the reality of war. The film and subsequent tour reveals the power that film can have in reaching people, particularly young people, and is a wonderful example for an emerging filmmaker on how both create and promote films.

Check out http://www.mechinathemovie.com/behindthetour.mov for information on the tour, and the website at www.mechinathemovie.com.

About Maital Guttman:
Maital graduated from Duke in ’05 with a BA in International Area Studies. Born in Israel, she moved to the United States at the age of seven. She loves to learn about other cultures and share her own, and is passionate about traveling and bringing people together. As a Robertson Scholar, she volunteered at various non-profit organizations in New Orleans, Thailand, and Uruguay. She studied Arabic in Morocco, and lived with a traditional Arab, Muslim family. That same year, she filmed Mechina: A Preparation, exploring the lives of six Israeli teens before the army. Subsequently, she produced a nation-wide tour to over 10,000 viewers at various colleges, high schools, and film festivals. In 2006, she was awarded the Lewis Hine Documentary Fellowship that sent her to South Africa for ten months. There, she worked at an arts-based HIV education center and taught filmmaking to some of the community children, which premiered on World AIDS Day. She also produced a film about a form of art therapy that empowers vulnerable children, which premiered at the International AIDS Conference in Toronto. Today, she continues to produce documentaries that reveal the lives of others, beyond what we hear in the news. She is currently touring with several of her films, speaking about the human face of Global AIDS and of young Israelis before the army.

Check out an article written about Maital and her films at http://www.news-record.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070922/NRSTAFF/70922008

For more information, email mechinathemovie@gmail.com .