The Newport Beach Film Festival, which runs April 28 to May 5, is again seeking “enthusiastic film lovers to
volunteer.”
Warm bodies are needed for guest relations, merchandise sales, theater ushering, office
reception, and gala and special-events staffing for the 12th annual event.
Three- to four-hour
shifts are available in the mornings, afternoons and evenings.
Volunteers must be at least 16 years old. College students and seniors
are welcome.
Volunteers
must also attend at least one orientation session before the festival.
These provide an overview of activities, as well as updated
information on positions and volunteer responsibilities.
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You can sign up for specific shifts at orientation meetings, where $5 volunteer shirts are also available for purchase. The sessions are held at in the City of Newport Beach Council Chambers, 3300 Newport Blvd., Newport Beach.
You must RSVP to vo********@ne******************.com and select at least one of these sessions to attend: Monday, March 21, 7-8:30 p.m.; Thursday, March 24, 7-8:30 p.m.; Saturday, March 26, 10:30 a.m.-noon; Monday, March 28, 7-8:30 p.m.; Thursday, March 31, 7-8:30 p.m.; or Saturday, April 2, 10:30 a.m.-noon.
More important to film fans is the arrival of award-winning movies for viewing. While the NBFF has not officially released its fight card, Hamill will be on it, according to producers of the dramatic feature based on the life of UFC light heavyweight Matt Hamill, the sport's first deaf competitor.
Hamill picked up the Audience Award for Best Feature Film this past
weekend at the Miami Film Festival. Four months earlier, the film captured the Breakthrough Film award at the 2010 AFI Film Festival in
Los Angeles.
“These awards are further proof this film can survive
theatrically and break the mold,” Eben Kostbar, who co-wrote and
produced Hamill with partner Joseph McKelheer, tells MMAjunkie.com.
The indie, shot on what Kostbar described as a “modest budget,” features in the lead role unknown deaf actor Russell Harvard. For more on the film, visit HamillTheMovie.com.
Before Hamill arrives in Newport Beach, it's going to the Cleveland International Film Festival, where
the UFC will document the real Matt Hamill's work promoting the film as part of the Countdown to UFC 130 program.
There's more OC intrigue involving Hamill and UFC 130: He's slated to fight Quinton “Rampage” Jackson of Irvine at the May 28 event at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las
Vegas.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.