Maital Guttman recipient of an ROI Micro Grant, creates a love story to impact Israel and beyond.

What do you have when you combine Israel, lesbian and film together? Sadly, you often get a violent, unhealthy, and delusional portrayal of the LGBT community. This is what I experienced when attended the Lethal Lesbian Film Festival.  Though the festival has good intentions and an amazing group of women who run it, the films submitted unfortunately make lesbians seem crazy, disturbed, and void of meaning.  
“Where is the love?” I wondered after the festival.  “Where is the feel-good love story?” I asked my friends. 

Frustrated by these negative portrayals, I envisioned producing a film that was fun and filled with meaning. Though I come from the world of documentary films, I started to brainstorm an idea for a love-story. After venting my frustration, one friend Sarah Tal Hof, agreed with my sentiments and volunteered to write the script in Hebrew. I asked another friend with experience in fiction films, Rotem Kedar, to direct the piece. Within a few weeks (amazingly fast turnaround for a film I came to learn), we had a script. 

In the film, two women—one a shy wallflower and the other a beautiful photographer- meet at a party. They share a moment that suddenly is interrupted and they lose each other. But, when the shy girl sees that her new love interest dropped a roll of film, she develops the roll. Through the pictures, she sets on an adventure around Yaffo, trying to find her new love.



We had a great script, an amazing crew, two beautiful actresses - Sarah Weil and Noa Maiman - and a lot of momentum. But, two weeks before shooting, we still had no money. So, I turned to ROI and their newly created Micro Grants. Within one day of applying, I received an email that my application was accepted.

Plain and simple: The ROI Micro Grant enabled me to produce my very first fictional film.  Without it, the idea would have stayed in the “One day, I would love to…” bins in my mind.  Instead, with what may seem like a little bit of money when compared with typical film (or most any) budgets, the $1,000 Micro Grant was the key factor in giving the green-light to begin shooting.

We shot the film in Yaffo, are now in the editing process, and have already had requests from festivals to screen the film. As a documentary filmmaker now in business school, this was an amazing opportunity for me to make a dream come to fruition and to expand my skills. I am continuously grateful, time and time again, for the financial and especially professional support and encouragement by the ROI staff and network. And hopefully, the Return On Investment will be a film that can have positive impact in Israel, to the LGBT community, and beyond.