Cast Commentary

Get to know the “cast” here at the Jacob Burns Film Center: the employees, volunteers, and interns who make it possible to bring over 400 films a year to the community.

Featuring Gen Oliver, Development Associate

What about your job do you find most satisfying?
I love going to films at the theater and seeing people react to movies – laughing and crying, having important conversations, asking great questions – and knowing that I helped raise the money that made this possible. And I love talking to our members, getting to know them, and hearing about their connections to the JBFC and their perspectives on the films and series they love here; it gives me a lot of inspiration for the grants that I write.

What about working at the JBFC might people find surprising?
Lots, lots, lots, lots, lots, lots, lots of Excel spreadsheets.

Talk about an important or influential experience in your life that sparked your interest in nonprofit work.
When I was in college at Mount Holyoke in Western Mass, I was General Manager of our radio station (WMHC South Hadley 91.5FM!) which happened to be the oldest continuously running radio station in the country entirely run by women! In the ‘90s we had Bikini Kill play on campus, et cetera. Anyway despite the station’s history we were completely denied funding the year that I was a senior. Our operating expenses weren’t terrible and we had money saved but we had to fundraise in order to put on any programming so I ended up writing about twelve special funding requests to student government and also trying to put on concert fundraisers for a student body who often complained whenever we made any noise. Fun!

What’s currently decorating your work space?
Mine is mostly work documents, old ticket stubs, two calendars (one for this month and one for next month), a printed out page from this article (“cultural literacy is an always food”), and this cartoon:

What’s the first movie you ever saw in a theater?
I don’t remember, but I do remember watching The Aristocats every single day for an entire summer when I was six or seven.

If you could have a one-on-one dinner with anybody in the world—living or dead—who would it be?
I’ve never been good at answering this question, but lately, probably Nell Zink, who would at least be really interesting.