Movie plot
A retired doctor, decides to travel as a volunteer to a greek refugee camp. When she meets young Ahmed, the limits between the need to take care of somebody and of feeling useful begin to fade. On the surface, the need to volunteer implies altruism and a desire to help, but let's be frank, it is also a way to deal with social loneliness and atonement for first-world colonial guilt. In the unstable balance between two sides of this contemporary and growing virtue in the labour market is Nely Riguera’s The Volunteer. We had the opportunity to speak to the film’s producers in our podcast last November, and after premiering at the recent Malaga Film Festival, it has just screened in the last edition of the Barcelona Auteur Film Festival (D’A). At the heart of the story is Marisa (Carmen Machi), a recently retired doctor who, in an attempt to escape her meaningless routine, goes to volunteer in Greece to work with child refugees. But once she gets there, Marisa realises almost immediately that the managers of the refugee camp deem it more important to comply with the rules than to actually help. Her "bosses", representatives of the NGO, obsessed with their own importance as saviours, uphold their mission to control everything and do not allow Marisa to hug or adapt to the personal needs of the children, which is all apparently against protocol. So despite the rules, Marisa takes the initiative, especially after becoming attached to Ahmed, a boy traumatised by the disappearance of his parents, who does not speak and goes everywhere with his dog. Determined to incite change in this soulless world, Marisa embarks on a journey with Ahmed in order to adopt him. From this moment she begins her real conflict not only with the system, but also with herself.
Overview of the movie
The Volunteer Key
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