Arts
Editor's Note: This is the fourth part in a five-part series profiling several Dartmouth alumni in entertainment and the Dartmouth Alumni in Entertainment and Media Association.
Although Zola Mashariki '94, senior vice president of production at Fox Searchlight Pictures, attended Harvard Law School after graduating from Dartmouth and worked in corporate law for three years, she had no qualms about moving on to a lowly internship position at Fox Searchlight.
Mashariki was "always interested in film," but she was unsure how to "penetrate" the film industry from a background that did not include film studies.
"I didn't really know my job existed, because like a lot of people who think of Hollywood, I thought all the jobs were either for directors, actors or writers," Mashariki said.
Mashariki transitioned from corporate law to her production internship at Fox Searchlight by attending the Peter Stark Producing Program, a master of fine arts program at the University of Southern California.
"Film was still calling me and I knew if I stayed longer at the [law] firm, it would be impossible to get out, because once you do things like buy a house and start a family it is just harder to give up that income," Mashariki said.
Over the last 11 years, Mashariki has risen to her current position and has worked on a number of feature films, including Mark Romanek's "Never Let Me Go" (2010), Sanaa Hamri's "Just Wright" (2010), George Tillman Jr.'s "Notorious" (2009) and Tamara Jenkins' "The Savages" (2007).
"I didn't know a lot about film but [former president of Fox Searchlight Peter Rice] said he wanted me to join his staff, saying I would either sink or swim, so I spent my first year trying to figure it out, and I still am," Mashariki said.
Mashariki has spoken on several Dartmouth Alumni in Entertainment and Media Association panels, as her path is a good example for undergraduates who want to enter the corporate side of the film industry.
While at the College, Mashariki, a sociology major and theater minor, won the Eleanor Frost and Rush & Loring Dodd Annual Playwriting Festival and was a member of Casque and Gauntlet senior society.
