Creative Director of Short Films & Original Cinema (Volunteer)

Mentor A Promise (MAP) is a New York City–based nonprofit serving children and youth (ages 5–18) experiencing housing instability, grounded in the belief that every child is a Promise—full of potential, dignity, and possibility. We deliver consistent, high-quality programming across mentorship, literacy, social-emotional learning, and creative expression in shelters, schools, and community spaces, creating structured environments where students can grow, be seen, and build lasting skills. Through signature experiences like The Imagination Studio, The Kitchen Table, The Sound Lab, and The Story Space, we nurture academic development, emotional well-being, and creative voice, all within a trauma-informed, culturally responsive, and accessibility-centered framework. Our work prioritizes dignity-protective storytelling, consent-driven engagement, and deep community partnership, ensuring that how we serve is as intentional as whom we serve.

PromiseStudios is MAP’s creative media division, developing original films, animation, podcasts, documentaries, photography, music, and other creative media exploring childhood, belonging, imagination, identity, community, and the meaning of home. PromiseShorts is PromiseStudios’ home for original short-form cinema, bringing together filmmakers and artists to develop distinctive short films across live action, animation, stop motion, documentary, experimental, and hybrid storytelling. Our goal is to develop original cinema with artistic identity, emotional depth, and stories worth remembering.

About the role

Mentor A Promise is seeking a Creative Director of Short Films & Original Cinema to lead the creative development and growth of PromiseShorts. This volunteer role involves clear creative ownership of the PromiseShorts initiative—identifying stories, developing concepts, assembling creative teams, guiding productions, and establishing a distinctive cinematic language for MAP's original short-form work. The Creative Director will collaborate with specialized PromiseStudios talent, including writers, directors, filmmakers, animators, cinematographers, editors, composers, sound designers, illustrators, photographers, producers, and other collaborators, while respecting the leadership and ownership of individual creative disciplines. This is an opportunity to build an original short-film program from the ground up within a growing mission-driven creative studio.

Responsibilities

• Creative Vision & Story Development
  • Lead the creative vision and development of PromiseShorts.
  • Identify, evaluate, and develop original concepts and stories.
  • Guide treatments, scripts, storyboards, visual references, and creative development.
  • Establish a distinctive cinematic identity for PromiseShorts.
  • Determine which ideas should advance into production.
  • Protect the emotional integrity and artistic ambition of each project.
  • Explore stories that may grow across film, animation, publishing, audio, and other creative formats.
• Film Development & Production
  • Guide projects from concept through development, pre-production, production, post-production, and release.
  • Collaborate with directors, writers, cinematographers, animators, editors, composers, sound designers, producers, and other specialists.
  • Provide clear creative direction while respecting the expertise and ownership of individual artists.
  • Review cuts, performances, animation, music, sound, cinematography, and other creative elements as appropriate.
  • Ensure every element serves the story rather than existing simply for visual or technical effect.
  • Maintain high standards for storytelling, craft, originality, and execution.
• Build the PromiseShorts Team
  • Recruit filmmakers, directors, writers, producers, and other creative collaborators.
  • Identify emerging artists whose perspectives and abilities could strengthen PromiseStudios.
  • Match creative talent with projects based on style, experience, and storytelling needs.
  • Mentor developing filmmakers and encourage meaningful artistic growth.
  • Build a collaborative environment where artists can challenge ideas, experiment, and produce ambitious work.
  • Establish sustainable creative and production workflows as PromiseShorts grows.
• Youth-Centered & Ethical Storytelling
  • Support projects that provide young people meaningful opportunities for voice, creativity, authorship, and artistic participation.
  • Ensure stories involving children, families, housing instability, or lived experience are approached with dignity and complexity.
  • Collaborate with MAP leadership on consent, safeguarding, privacy, and representation.
  • Avoid storytelling that sensationalizes hardship or reduces people to circumstances.
  • Help create stories that recognize young people's humor, imagination, relationships, fears, contradictions, ambitions, and full humanity.
• Festivals, Screenings & Audience
  • Identify appropriate film festivals, screenings, showcases, and exhibition opportunities.
  • Support preparation of selected work for festival and community presentation.
  • Collaborate with MAP teams on trailers, key art, promotional materials, and release strategy.
  • Explore opportunities for educational and community use of appropriate films.
  • Help build an enduring audience for PromiseStudios Originals.

Requirements

We welcome creative leaders with backgrounds in:

• Film directing
• Creative direction
• Short-film development
• Screenwriting and story development
• Animation or stop motion
• Cinematography
• Film editing
• Documentary filmmaking
• Producing
• Visual storytelling
• Children's or youth media

The strongest candidates will demonstrate an exceptional understanding of story, character, emotion, performance, visual language, composition, pacing, editing, music, and sound. A strong portfolio, reel, filmography, or body of creative work is highly valued. Formal nonprofit experience is not required.

Ideal Candidate

You may be a strong fit if you:

• Think like a filmmaker and storyteller—not simply a content creator.
• Believe a five-minute film can carry the emotional power of a feature.
• Can recognize the cinematic potential hidden inside a simple idea.
• Understand how writing, directing, performance, cinematography, animation, editing, music, and sound work together.
• Can move thoughtfully across live action, animation, documentary, stop motion, and experimental forms.
• Give clear, constructive, and inspiring creative direction.
• Know when to push an idea further—and when to protect its simplicity.
• Enjoy building teams and developing emerging artists.
• Care deeply about representing children, families, and communities with dignity and complexity.
• Want to help shape an emerging nonprofit creative studio with genuine artistic ambition.

What You Will Help Build

The goal is larger than producing individual short films. You will help MAP build a growing library of PromiseStudios Originals—distinctive stories capable of living across cinema, animation, publishing, audio, education, festivals, community screenings, and other creative formats. Over time, PromiseShorts should become a creative laboratory where filmmakers can experiment with form, discover new voices, develop original intellectual property, and create stories audiences remember.

What Success Looks Like

• PromiseShorts develops a recognizable creative identity.
• Strong ideas move through a disciplined development process.
• Each film has clear creative leadership and ownership.
• MAP builds a growing community of filmmakers and collaborators.
• Emerging artists receive meaningful opportunities to develop their craft.
• Productions become increasingly ambitious without sacrificing execution.
• Young people's stories and participation are handled ethically and thoughtfully.
• Finished films are strong enough to pursue screenings, festivals, educational use, and broader audiences.
• PromiseStudios develops original stories with the potential to endure beyond a single release.

Why This Role Matters

Stories influence how children understand themselves—and how the world understands them. Young people experiencing housing instability should never be defined solely by hardship. Their worlds also contain imagination, humor, friendship, creativity, fear, adventure, curiosity, contradictions, dreams, and extraordinary possibility. PromiseShorts exists to tell stories that recognize that full humanity. We are looking for a Creative Director who can help us find those stories, assemble the artists capable of telling them, and turn small ideas into unforgettable cinema.

Commitment

• Approximately 5–10 hours per week, depending on production schedules.
• Minimum 6-month commitment required.
• Remote with NYC-based production as needed.
• Regular participation in creative development and production meetings.
• Consistent communication and follow-through.
• Availability may increase during active productions.
• Completion of applicable MAP onboarding, safeguarding, privacy, and organizational requirements.

Benefits

• Creative leadership of a growing original-film initiative.
• Opportunity to help build PromiseShorts from its early stages.
• Experience developing original films from concept through release.
• Collaboration with filmmakers, writers, animators, composers, editors, cinematographers, and other artists.
• Opportunities to discover and mentor emerging creative talent.
• Portfolio and creative-credit opportunities as appropriate.
• Professional references and letters of recommendation.
• Meaningful opportunity to help establish the artistic identity and body of work of PromiseStudios.

This is a volunteer, unpaid position limited to individuals based in the United States due to legal, safeguarding, data-privacy, compliance, and programmatic requirements.