Nonprofit director Elizabeth Leff shows cast members footage. (Photo: Jason Mataz)[Missing Credit]
The New York-born writer was inspired by other successful workplace comedies – think The Office, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Veep, Superstore – and wanted to create one that centred Jewish identities, particularly in social justice spaces.
Especially while doing “really intense policy work in DC,” Leff said comedy was both a welcome reprieve and a helpful way to process her advocacy efforts.
“I want my career to have an overlap of those things because I don't want to step away from either of them. And I don’t think I need to,” she said.
“I've realised that on-screen storytelling can be, and in some cases should be, just as much a tool for education and persuasion as it is entertainment. I personally believe we can be laughing and enjoying ourselves and learning all at the same time.”
Nonprofit revolves around four employees, aged between 22 and 32, at a Jewish organisation called Koach – the Hebrew word for strength or power. There's protagonist Eve, loosely based off Leff, who is endlessly torn between her ambitions to improve the world and her fear that “nothing any of us does actually makes a difference”; there’s non-Jewish, jock-like Pete, who “helps provide the audience with answers to questions if they're not Jewish,” all the while rallying his colleagues like the captain of an American football team; there’s Shifra, the cynic; and there’s Noam, socially abrasive but policy-smart, “overcompensating for his shortcomings socially by trying to demonstrate his intelligence and his connection to Judaism.”
Actors (from left) Doc Denton, Tom Colford, Olivia Catherine, and Esmeralda Maloufi gather on set for the short film Nonprofit. (Photo: Jason Mataz)[Missing Credit]
The proof-of-concept project, intended to precede a pilot episode “to demonstrate what this world looks like,” was shot over two days in London, where Leff is living until she completes her master’s in September. She had her concerns about filming the DC-based show outside of the US, not least because she wanted to cast Jewish actors with convincing American accents, but both the set and the young actors ultimately exceeded her expectations.
“We ended up shooting it at the office of an actual Jewish organisation – Liberal Judaism – and that was so helpful because, you know, it was exactly the vibe I was going for: very lived in, not the fanciest of offices, but does the job,” Leff said. “Boxes piled up everywhere, too.”
And thanks to the financial support provided by donors to Leff’s GoFundMe campaign, Leff was able to pay her tight-knit cast and crew for their work. After she submits the short as her final project, her first objective is to host a screening for the people involved and everyone who contributed to the GoFundMe.
Elizabeth Leff, 29, wrote and directed the short film Nonprofit as a final project for her master's degree at Raindance Film School in London. (Photo: Jason Mataz)[Missing Credit]
She hopes Nonprofit conveys her appreciation for the efforts of those who work in faith-based advocacy, and that the core of the show – the relationships between these Jewish and non-Jewish characters – shines through.
“These characters love their co-workers and, no matter how crappy [the work], no matter how upsetting, no matter how tired you are at the end of the day, your people are your people, and that is amazing.”
