Each May we welcome around 110 volunteers from Oslo, the rest of Norway and abroad. Volunteering with OSFF is one of the most direct ways to learn how a festival is really built.
You can express interest in up to three teams when you apply. We do our best to match you with your first choice, but some teams (Translation, Industry Lounge, Ceremony Crew) require specific experience and will be allocated on review.
Welcome audiences, check tickets, hand out programmes, answer questions on the festival floor.
Look after visiting filmmakers and jury — airport pickups, hotel check-ins, restaurant guidance.
Support our projection team across DCP loading, format checks and venue handovers.
Help the selection team during the run-up: viewing notes, screener tracking, jury logistics.
Run the press desk, escort interviews, look after photographers and the live broadcast.
Greet sales agents and producers, coordinate one-to-one meetings during the campus.
Live interpretation for Q&As. Norwegian, French, Mandarin, Arabic, Spanish, Japanese are especially welcome.
Help stage-manage the awards night — runners, dressing-room hosts, backstage cues.
This is a volunteer programme. We cannot pay you for your time. But we believe in giving back as much as we ask for, and we work hard to make sure the week is genuinely worth it.
Access to every public screening, panel and the closing-night after-party.
Catered meals on every shift day, plus a daily transport pass within Oslo.
Personal letter and a one-to-one career conversation with the department head you worked with.
For volunteers travelling more than 600 km, a contribution toward accommodation in a partner hostel.
Invitation to our December Reunion night with the OSFF team — film screening, dinner and a quiet round-up.
Volunteer pin, lanyard, notebook and a small numbered edition print from one of our partner artists.
Access to the Industry Lounge during open hours — meet sales agents, programmers and producers.
Not the simulation of one. You will leave knowing how a festival of this size actually runs.
Applications for the VII edition (10 – 19 May 2027) are open. We accept volunteers on a rolling basis until 1 March 2027 — earlier applicants get first pick of teams.
Five minutes. We read every application individually.
Either a place offered directly, a short interview invitation, or a kind note saying we are full for that role.
Held via video call with the team head you'd be working with. Genuinely informal.
Shift calendar, festival booklet, kit pickup details and the official volunteer handbook.
Check in on day one, meet your team, collect your kit, and the festival begins.
The whole crew returns for a closing dinner and a screening of the year's best moments.
We keep the requirements light, but they are firm.
From the post-festival surveys we send to every volunteer in late May. Edited only for length.
"I came expecting to hand out programmes. By Friday I was running the Q&A mic at a packed Konserthus. I have never learned more in a single week."
Sigrid · Projection & Tech · 2025 · Bergen
"I flew in alone from Lyon and left with a hundred friends. The hospitality team became my family — and they all knew exactly where the good coffee was."
Antoine · Hospitality · 2024 · Lyon
"Volunteering at OSFF turned my film school theory into actual practice. I now work in programming for a regional festival. I would never have known this was a job."
Mei · Programme Assist · 2023 · Stavanger
"The schedule is intense, the city is cold, the films are extraordinary. Three of the directors I met that week are still in my life."
Olivier · Industry Lounge · 2022 · Brussels
Volunteer calls, programme announcements and short film recommendations. We never share your email.
