WHAT WE OFFER?
-Dinner every day of the festival. Breakfast and most lunches are not included: you’ll get lunch organized for you only 3 times, on the most intense working days.
-An official t-shirt
-A tote bag full of surprises
-An amazing cinema-lover monkeys experience in the south of Italy, and the chance to meet filmmakers and artists from all over the world
-The chance to be part of the team building one of the most daring, community-driven festivals in Italy, in one of the wildest and most authentic regions of the country: Calabria
-If you have a car and want to be a runner/driver, we will pay for the gas you will be using during the festival.
*Housing in Amantea during summer can get very expensive. We decided to sponsor 50% of the housing cost for each volunteer.
WE ARE LOOKING FOR PEOPLE WHO:
-Speak good English or basic Italian
-Aren’t afraid to talk to strangers and to work hard, even under pressure
-Want to learn and develop their interests and teach their own talent
-Exhibit flexibility
-Treat others in a respectful and supportive manner
-Want to build a community
-Are looking for a real working experience, not a vacation
We’re also always curious about people who know how to use social media in interesting or unconventional ways. It’s not a requirement to be selected — but if you have something you’d like to share with us, from memes to TikTok videos, let us know, we’d love to see it.
WE ARE A HORIZONTAL FESTIVAL
Our director and the organizing team work alongside the volunteers in the activities, and no one is treated as a servant. But this also means everyone is expected to help with everything: if you see something on the floor, pick it up; if you see something dirty, clean it; if you see a problem, speak up about it. We are one team, and it’s important to us that our volunteers share this spirit.
WHAT WILL YOU DO?
In the morning you are going to hand out flyers at the beach to entice people to come to the festival. It is a very important way to approach people, make them know about the festival and try to get them to come. We know that in those days there will be many tourists, so the more people know the festival, the more people will be able to reach us. After you have done this, you will be free to stay at the beach or do what you like. Lunch is always organized on the busiest days, so otherwise you’re free to sort yourself out.
We will put you in a team from one of our areas. Usually, the work begins at 18:00 but, since there are so many things to do, you may be required to start earlier. In any case, from the beginning of the work we should all be in La Grotta until the end of the activities. Dinner will also be organized, so that we can eat before the screenings start. So that you can dedicate your festival days fully to work, we give the team access to watch the selected films before the festival starts.
This year we especially need people for:
La Grotta dei Piccoli – if you love working with kids and organizing creative workshops, this is for you.
Ingresso (Front of House) – welcoming and seating the audience, making sure no one enters with dogs or glass bottles. La Guarimba is a free-entry festival, so this role is about hospitality and keeping things running smoothly, not sales. It needs people who aren’t afraid to talk to the public and to work.
Drivers – if you have a car and don’t mind driving around during the festival, we need you (gas covered).
Throughout the festival we also organize shared moments: an arepada, where we all make arepas (a typical Venezuelan dish) together, a walking tour of the town, and an early-morning beach clean-up.
Drinking and smoking are not allowed during festival activities. Once the day’s work is done, that’s your time, but keep in mind this isn’t a place to party every night — the next morning always starts early and there’s a lot to do.
WHERE ARE YOU STAYING?
For €150 (€10 per night if you decide to come from August 1st), you will stay in a rented house sharing a room with other volunteers. The fridge will be already filled by Guarimba with everything you may need. In this house it is not allowed to have parties nor invite people who are not from the staff. We build a community where we have to collaborate together cooking, cleaning and respecting the spaces.
WHERE IS LA GUARIMBA?
La Guarimba is in Amantea, a small town facing the Tyrrhenian Sea with its roots in fishing, agriculture and commerce. Unfortunately, there aren’t many cultural opportunities offered to the local population who are also dealing with constant economic hardship. This is a tourist location that really needs a flux from outside its small reality. Amantea is full of contradictions between its beauties and horrors, with rich Southern Italian flavours from the sea and from the land, caught between antiquity and modernity, and although it is a small town it has three closed-down cinemas that used to be the social hubs for the entire province and for visitors flocking here from the rest of Italy.
Amantea houses about 300 refugees and asylum seekers, mostly from Subsaharan Africa, and we involve them every year in workshops and in the community of the festival.
DISCLAIMER
Volunteers are an essential part of the festival. They come here to work hard and have a very beautiful experience, meeting people from all over the world and building a community with them. They are not coming to party, but they have fun; they are not on vacation, but they manage to go to the beach. If what you’re looking for is a few days to relax and watch films, this isn’t the right place for you — but if you want an intense, formative experience building a festival from the ground up, we want to hear from you.
