About 30 minutes ago read this over on Angelo Bell’s blog:

I just got off the phone with the volunteer coordinator for the Newport Beach Film Festival. The number is 949-387-3489. You know, this is the festival that rejected my film, “Broken Hearts Club,” right? Well. At the time when I was waiting for an answer about the festival I went to the official website and signed up to be a volunteer. I figured, what the hell? Truthfully, I had no intentions of following up to do volunteer work. I’ve done my time volunteering for film festivals and award shows, thank you very much. But then again, one never knows how one might feel in the future, right?

But on with the story…

So I get a call from the volunteer coordinator. It seems my “reputation” proceeds me. She confirms that I am signed up for a volunteer orientation for March 28th. But then she promptly says that she doesn’t think that I am “…the right kind of person we want to have as a volunteer.”

WHAT. THE. FUCK.

If you know me, then you know there is NO way I am letting that slide. I asked her, “What makes you believe that?”

She stutters for a second. Gathers her thoughts and then says, “Well, it because of certain comments we’ve read. I don’t think you represent the kind of person we want interacting with patrons.”

I knew exactly about what she was referring. “Fair enough,” I said. We hung up.

So I called up the festival myself and asked to speak to the volunteer coordinator. I read her Angelo’s blog post and asked her if it was true. I asked her what it was he had written, and she said that she couldn’t discus with me. I told here that wasn’t a very satisfactory answer, but if that’s what she wanted me to go with on my blog, that’s what I’d run.

She said that she was just a “lowly intern” and would have to check with some other people before saying anything more, which I suppose is fair enough. I told her I’d wait until 3PM EDT tomorrow for them to figure out what they wanted to say about what it what it was they read on Angelo’s blog that they were worried about, and I’d be happy to blog their response.

I’ll also hold my own commentary until tomorrow.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 24th, 2009 at 8:44 pm and is filed under Blogging, film festivals. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.