The Volunteer

Marisa, a recently retired doctor, decides to leave everything and travel to a refugee camp in Greece, where they seem to need people exactly like her. Upon her arrival, she discovers a reality that she could never have imagined and which leads her to explore the boundaries between love and the need to feel useful. The "bosses" of the camp, representatives of the NGO, deem it more important to comply with the rules than to actually help those in need. They are obsessed with their own saviour complex, uphold their mission to control everything and do not allow Marisa to hug or adapt to the personal needs of the children, which is against protocol. So despite the rules, Marisa takes the initiative after becoming attached to Ahmed, a boy traumatised by the disappearance of his parents. Directed by Nely Reguera, one of the most promising of Spanish filmmakers, the film raises many questions and in the end leaves the audience with several uncomfortable answers about Western and still colonial hypocrisy towards refugees that claims to be handling the crisis when in reality it only feigns concern, and about conformism as an established norm of behaviour in first-world societies.

Keywords

  • aging
  • immigration
  • mental health
  • migration
  • refugees
  • solitude
  • Sooner Exclusives
  • Sooner Exclusives: Stories that Matter

Actors

  • Carmen Machi
  • Itsaso Arana
  • Arnau Comas Quirante
  • Dèlia Brufau
  • Yohan Levy

Director

  • Nely Reguera

Drama


1h 41min


16+

CA


FR

ES

DE

EN

NL

Spain
Greece
2022
Marisa, a recently retired doctor, decides to leave everything and travel to a refugee camp in Greece, where they seem to need people exactly like her. Upon her arrival, she discovers a reality that she could never have imagined and which leads her to explore the boundaries between love and the need to feel useful.

Marisa, a recently retired doctor, decides to leave everything and travel to a refugee camp in Greece, where they seem to need people exactly like her. Upon her arrival, she discovers a reality that she could never have imagined and which leads her to explore the boundaries between love and the need to feel useful.


The "bosses" of the camp, representatives of the NGO, deem it more important to comply with the rules than to actually help those in need. They are obsessed with their own saviour complex, uphold their mission to control everything and do not allow Marisa to hug or adapt to the personal needs of the children, which is against protocol. So despite the rules, Marisa takes the initiative after becoming attached to Ahmed, a boy traumatised by the disappearance of his parents.


Directed by Nely Reguera, one of the most promising of Spanish filmmakers, the film raises many questions and in the end leaves the audience with several uncomfortable answers about Western and still colonial hypocrisy towards refugees that claims to be handling the crisis when in reality it only feigns concern, and about conformism as an established norm of behaviour in first-world societies.

Cast & Crew