The Dublin Community Blog

Or: hard times bring out the best in people. And volunteers.

Volunteers are at their best when they become real grunts. Imagine: a cinema full of people who are enthusiastic about the movie they’ve just watched and don’t want to leave, a Q&A-session with the same people and the director from Spain, the need to get all these people (plus the director) out in under 2 minutes, and the need to clean the whole cinema in under 1 minute. And then imagine 200 unhappy people (including a Latvian director and his whole family) queing outside said cinema because the movie they want to enjoy was supposed to start 10 minutes ago. But JDIFF-volunteers are tough cookies. We’ll get the people out, clean the cinema and shoo the people in, all while ripping of tickets, handing out audience award ballots, helping elderly ladies and babies and smiling and saying “enjoy the film!” – while we are thinking “GUNG-HO! GUNG-HO!”.

But after all the madness has ebbed away and the gun smoke is gone, I always appreciate the fact that our great venue captains (brilliant people all of them, whatever the venue) allow volunteers to sneak in and watch a movie in between shifts. Like this I was able to watch the surprisingly good German movie “Same Same but Different” – based on a real-life story of a German backpacker falling in love with a prostitute from Cambodia. Well worth a look, therefore I hope it will be shown in Irish cinemas after the initial festival run.

Here’s one of the songs from the Soundtrack, “Heaven can wait” by Charlotte Gainsbourge & Beck with scenes from the movie: