Hiring a Director of Outreach for Films That Change the World Purim to Passover Project.

BACKGROUND:
Films That Change the World / www.filmsthatchangetheworld.com is founded by Sandi DuBowski, Director/Producer of Trembling Before G-d and Producer of A Jihad for Love. Films That Change the World launched a Pilot Project - The 5th Anniversary Celebration of Trembling on the Road which featured 85 house parties of Trembling Before G-d and/or Trembling on the Road in 16 countries during The High Holidays in September 2007. We catalyzed the questions: Have you created a more open and welcoming home, family, synagogue, and community? - and an action step - Where can you make a transformative change? (We included a number of powerful testimonies at the end of this post).

With such success, we expanded the work this Spring to feature multiple risk-taking films for change. The Purim to Passover Project is an innovative venture that couples the power of documentary storytelling, the participatory impact of Web 2.0 and DVD house parties, and the ethical teachings of the Jewish holidays of Purim and Passover to frame difficult dialogue on often divisive issues of difference and to catalyze individual, familial, and Jewish communal engagement, action, and change.

The Project begins with the story of Purim, set in ancient Persia. When the Jews were faced with extermination, Queen Esther who had kept her Judaism a secret from her husband, King Ahasureus, comes out to him to save her people. The holiday touches many provocative themes and asks questions that are deeply resonant about the closet - "Who do we come out for? What do we risk? Where do we speak for those who cannot speak?" Purim is about risk-taking and we will feature three films – Trembling Before G-d/ Trembling On the Road, Hineini: Coming Out In A Jewish High School and Encounter Point – that feature risk-takers who aim to transform the Jewish people, engaging GLBT and straight people, Jews and non-Jews.

Hineini: Coming Out In A Jewish High School is a moving film about a teenager who fights to start her Jewish high school's first Gay-Straight Alliance.

Encounter Point is about Israeli and Palestinian non-violent civic peace-builders.

Trembling on the Road is a featurette - a dramatic document of dialogues, protests, reactions, screenings, and events from the worldwide tour of Trembling Before G-d.

With the blessing of Keshet and Just Vision who produced Hineini: Coming Out In A Jewish High School and Encounter Point, Films That Change the World seeks to hire a Director of Outreach who will work to organize 250 house, organization, school, and synagogue parties and discussions around the world. This campaign extends from the period before Purim which falls on March 9th to Passover from April 8th- April 16th. Purim and Passover are powerful ritual frames - Passover is a holiday of liberation from oppression when we leave the "narrow place" and join together to fight for justice and freedom.

The Director of Outreach will work closely with Sandi DuBowski and the staff of Films That Change the World as well as the staff of Keshet and Just Vision to develop and implement outreach/advocacy, online PR, and marketing strategies. The Director of Outreach will serve as the primary project coordinator.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Catalyze house, organization, school, and synagogue parties around the world in March and April around Purim and Passover
• Liason with screening party hosts to maximize impact, provide facilitation or study guides, trouble-shoot.
• Develop partnerships with synagogues, schools, and international, national, and local Jewish organizations.
• Monitor blogs and Web sites (Jewish, GLBT, film, spiritual, interfaith, human rights/social change etc.) to identify opportunities for Purim to Passover Project campaign including link exchanges with other sites, mailing lists, website discussion areas, online newsletters, web press, etc.
• Develop and implement online PR strategy for Purim to Passover Project to amplify our reach online and to grow our e-subscriber list
• Research and implement web-based outreach, PR and marketing activities including social networking via Facebook, MySpace etc., viral marketing, search engine marketing, text messaging, blogs, tagging and other forms of electronic communications.
• Be a coordinating hub for the three teams – Films That Change the World, Just Vision, and Keshet who are in different cities – as well as the Web development/design team and DVD fulfillment house.
• Oversee Evaluation in late April including a survey to all house party hosts, testimony gathering, and follow-up interviews.
• Support fundraising for Purim to Passover Project with grant submissions, foundation research
• Recruit and supervise interns.

POSITION REQUIREMENTS
The ideal candidate will have:

• Enthusiasm and passion for Trembling Before G-d, Hineini: Coming Out In A Jewish High School, and Encounter Point and the issues at its core, and spreading the message around the world.
• Interest in Jewish community, online engagement, public interest advocacy/campaigns, film.
• Experience working with Jewish communities.
• Strong computer skills, including Microsoft Office (Word, Excel), web publishing tools, as well as Internet research skills
• Ability to work with social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace,
• Ability to juggle multiple tasks under deadlines
• Ability to communicate clearly and effectively, both verbally and in written format, with staff, media and external partners
• Ability to work independently with minimal supervision with a team that is far-flung geographically

START DATE: Late January to early February
TYPE OF POSITION: Part-time position until late April/early May. If more funding is available, full-time
LOCATION: Anywhere
SALARY: Commensurate with experience

Please send a resume, a cover letter about why you would like to work on this project, and contact info for three references to sandi@filmsthatchangetheworld.com

Testimonies from Pilot Phase of 5th Anniversary Celebration of Trembling on the Road and www.filmsthatchangetheworld.com

"So we showed Trembling on the Road in our home last night. Twenty people. Straight, queer, mostly Jews, but not only. Four queer Jews (and others) who work at four different Jewish institutions in town - all of them out. Some of their bosses as well. In short, it was a really wonderful evening. Such deep and broad appreciation to be discussing the nature of community, to talk about change, to come up with ideas, to have the opportunity to offer help, to circle around to old and new approaches, to share pain and laughter, to feel a return. From the high level change (how do we get to show this in the Jewish high school) to broad based change (everyone here should have a showing of Trembling in their home 20 people x 20 people = 400 people), there was openness, self-critique, and presence. That stuff makes a community. Thanks for the opportunity to do this. As the evening came to a close, I reflected on the fact that my two daughters (7 and 4) were snoring lightly upstairs. I felt that we could offer no better modeling for this new year for them than we were at that moment. Ima and Aba [Mom and Dad] were downstairs with friends and colleagues intentionally talking about how to make this world, which is ultimately theirs, a sweeter, safer and more inclusive place. With full hearts and ironically empty-handed (both of my copies of the film had been snagged by visitors who wanted to share with others), we all parted paths with more of a shared vision than ever."

"We screened Trembling Before G-d at a Conservative synagogue with an elderly congregation in Queens, New York. Seventy people came to see the film, and they were mostly seniors. The discussion that took place after the screening revealed that the film was really eye-opening for them. I asked for a show of hands to indicate how many people had never before considered what it means to be gay and Jewish, and nearly every hand went up. We had an open, honest, active conversation that really got people thinking. It was an outstanding exchange."

"Last week, my family's shul [synagogue] had a viewing of Trembling and following its conclusion, the rabbi of the shul got up and said that this was the saddest movie he had ever seen. He said that earlier in his rabbinical career, he would have counseled gays by telling them categorically that gay activity is forbidden and they must be celibate. Now he said he is deeply torn, would no longer counsel this way to gays, and that the gedolim [the sages] must be innovative, using great halachic [Jewish legal] creativity to make a way to embrace practicing gays. He cited historical examples of Hillel's Prozbul enactment for the Sabbatical year and the Sages institution of selling chometz to a non-Jew during Pesach as radical demonstrations of the rabbis' authority and halachic creativity to meet those challenges head on and reconcile them, all fully in a halachic manner. He said the same thing is desperately needed for gays and that the gedolim must not be silent any longer." Lisa Farber Miller of the Rose Community Foundation wrote on the Denver screening: "I was thinking of you because one of our orthodox/traditional congregations, BMH-BJ, had a Trembling showing and the rabbi was astonished and moved by his congregation's response and is now working to influence his movement. The power of your work in action!"