On Oct. 22, the 6th Annual Guam International Film Festival held a pre-Film Festival meeting for a handful of volunteers who will be tasked to do various jobs during the five-day event.
GIFF director Ruzelle Amparo, and volunteer manager CJ Ochoco have been organizing the volunteers into the roles that they want them to fill.
“I have been the festival director since 2011 to 2014, when I left for Dallas, but now I’m back and festival director again,” Amparo said. Amparo aspires that with GIFF becoming popular and with a proper venue, they will attract more of an audience than pervious events.
While there aren’t that many people who plan on volunteering, GIFF has multiple high school students from various schools who might fill in the missing positions throughout the week.
The various positions include hospitality ushers, operators for technical equipment, and box office staff tasked with selling tickets at the door. There are even positions open for delegates to chaperone the various dignitaries from the different countries.
The majority of the positions are still waiting volunteers, and more people are encouraged to come and help out. There’s still time to volunteer out for the event where you can get a free t-shirt as well as view the various movies that are up for offer.
GIFF has a new venue this year being the going to be newly opened Guam Museum. With a new place to call home, they hope that with this, GIFF can grow into a bigger and better than the past events. With every year, the number of films have been increasing, so has the qualities of films.
There are 54 films that are scheduled for this year, all ranging from featured documentaries to animated shorts. From being locally made to films from as far as Pakistan, the film festival has transformed from a local thing into a worldwide occurrence.
“It’s good to familiarize yourself with the films incase audience members ask you what they should watch” said Ochoco. While there be a viewing inside the museum theater, there will also be a free viewing outside in the field.
The films have already been judged for the event, and there are several that stand out, which the audience should lookout for. From the Korean film “Retriever” to Croatian film “Free,” there will be a whole array of different films for the whole family to watch.
GIFF will be held on Nov. 16-20. For further information about GIFF, head over to their website where you can see the whole schedule of the festival at http://www.guamfilmfestival.org/.