Chatting About Movies With Couchsurfers

During my 11-year journey around the globe, I couchsurfed about 60 times, though I didn’t meet many hosts who were film enthusiasts. Those I stayed with may not have provided thrilling or heart-pounding experiences, but their unique life stories and the brief time we shared were still richer and more engaging than most slice-of-life films. After all, life isn’t a movie; life is more than a movie.

Now, staying in a two-bedroom apartment in Buenos Aires with one vacant room ever since my previous roommate returned to his hometown , I’ve recently started “giving back” to the community by hosting on Couchsurfing, opening my place to travelers from around the world at no charge. My current guests are a young married couple from Guayaquil, Ecuador as well as a Italian-German couple; tonight, a French girl will be coming. So far, none of them are movie buffs—or at least they haven’t mentioned a strong interest in films on their Couchsurfing profiles. But that’s okay. Most of the time, our chats and the misunderstandings that arise from language barriers are far more interesting than watching a film. And as someone living alone, I’d rather have meaningful conversations through couchsurfing—chats that go beyond the typical English exchanges between hostel mates such as “Where are you from?” or “Where are you heading next?”, along with occasional shared meals in the kitchen—than just sit at home in front of my computer or TV screen or attend performances where there isn’t any human interaction.

But since this is a life forum about films, I’ll share stories about the film enthusiast hosts I once stayed with as a couchsurfer, and I hope to meet some guests who share the same interest as them in the near future.

On August 22, 2015, I arrived in Yerevan, the capital of Armenia. My host, Armina, was an abstract painter who used her apartment as a teaching studio. Her husband was a TV documentary filmmaker, and he pulled up a short film he had shot in 2006 in Shandong, China, titled “Far and Near,” on his computer. Sponsored by the Armenian Ministry of Culture, it tells the story of an Armenian nurse who moves to Shandong for marriage, only to face cultural struggles that cause tension in her relationship with her husband. After watching the film, I began with a polite comment, saying, “The emotions and pacing are quite good,” but the director cut me off: “This is trash from my past!” He even ejected the disc and snapped it in half. “But later, I went to Warsaw and studied under Andrzej Wajda for three years. Now I’m working on something much more interesting, about a young soldier who shuffles between his military base and the film set every day, vowing to become a star instead of an extra. I’ll send it to you when it’s done.” Unfortunately, I never even noted down his name.

Iran, or at least Iran as it was in 2016, might just be the friendliest country in the world. Finding free accommodation on Couchsurfing was as easy as it gets, and even on the streets, drivers might pull over to offer help if you were seen looking at a map, inviting you to stay in their homes that were completely safe. When it was time to leave, your host might even ask about your next destination to see if they knew someone there—perhaps a classmate, relative, or friend—who could host you. However, the countries we come to know through films are often different from the ones we experience in reality, and this is especially true of Iran, which is mostly presented to cinephiles through the lens of art films. Couchsurfing hosts who speak English and are heavily Westernized may know the names of Iranian filmmakers like Abbas Kiarostami, Jafar Panahi, and Asghar Farhadi, but that doesn’t mean they actually watch their festival-bound films. Most Iranians, whom travelers rarely encounter, watch films that strictly adhere to Islamic law by tuning in to TV programs or going to the cinema on occasion. In stark contrast to Iran’s internationally renowned art films, the country’s commercial films are rather poor in quality—even featuring female protagonists who wear headscarves while bathing!

During my one-month journey through this enigmatic country, I only discussed film twice with my hosts. One of these occasions was in Sanandaj, the Kurdish region of western Iran. As a thank-you gesture, I shared some “adult films” that I assumed would be hard to find in Iran, most of which came from Hong Kong. My host, who worked at a local NGO, took out his phone, and to my surprise, it was full of Japanese “romantic action films.” The other occasion was in the ancient city of Yazd, where my host, Sajad, reminisced about a Chinese friend, now a successful young entrepreneur running a large online furniture business in London. “I showed him around almost all of Iran,” Sajad recounted. “When we were saying goodbye at Imam Khomeini Airport, he said, ‘Man, I’m your Aladdin—make a wish!’ I felt embarrassed to ask for money or furniture, so I said, ‘Help me apply to the 11-month program at the London Film School.’” Unfortunately, though he prepared his documents well, Sajad’s visa application was rejected, blocking what’d have been his first journey outside Iran. Meanwhile, his Chinese friend had married an Iranian-American and was planning a trip to visit her family back in Iran the next month.

In March 2016, I rented a car and drove to Tucson, Arizona, where I stayed with Nancy, a 67-year-old retired film studies professor. The U.S., an adversary of Iran, was still a relatively easy place to find couchsurfing hosts. Back then, most locals who opposed Donald Trump were willing to host foreign travelers. Nancy lived not far from the Old Tucson Studios, which has become a tourist attraction. She had conducted in-depth research and written academic papers on John Wayne’s four Westerns shot there. But in the spring of 2016, Nancy was primarily preoccupied with the presidential election; she even drove to Phoenix to join protests against Trump’s campaign rallies. Her dilemma was whether to vote for Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders. Unfortunately, by the end of the year, the very candidate she vehemently opposed had become president. Like now, again.

In mid-June 2016 (okay, I admit it was my most intense year of travel, having spent 10 months on the road), I arrived in Córdoba, Argentina’s second-largest city, and stayed with a local high school teacher, Sebastian. It happened to be during the Copa América Centenario, yet Sebastian was one of those rare Argentinians who didn’t like soccer; he spent all his free time watching movies instead. At that time, Jia Zhangke’s “A Touch of Sin” had just been released in Argentina, and I compared it to the segmented Argentine film “Wild Tales,” saying, “‘Wild Tales’ is far superior and much more entertaining.” Sebastian scoffed, “What? ‘Wild Tales’ is awful! How can it be compared to ‘A Touch of Sin?’” Clearly, the adage “The grass is always greener on the other side” holds true everywhere.

In late September 2017, I stayed in a small village in Cantabria, Spain, with Javi, a cinematographer, and his English girlfriend, Annie. Annie usually played the harp at tourist spots, but a few days earlier, her father had passed away, and she was preparing to take an overnight ferry back to Plymouth for his funeral. She and her father had been estranged for 30 years, and her son, Timo—born from her previous marriage to a Frenchman—was even more unfamiliar with his grandfather, so he wouldn’t be attending the funeral. Instead, Timo was eagerly anticipating his seventh birthday, just two days later. Annie must have felt deeply bittersweet about mourning the death of her creator while celebrating the birth of her creation in the same week. When we touched on films about the Spanish Civil War and topics about the Basque Country, Javi, who used to be a film producer, shared his utmost admiration for the documentary “The Basque Ball: Skin Against Stone” by Julio Medem, who is one of my favorite Spanish directors. “Most people probably remember him for his erotic expressions in fiction films, but his best work—and one of Spain’s greatest contemporary films—is definitely ‘The Basque Ball’! You could even say it helped resolve the Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) issue. Spanish schools should use it as teaching material. Sadly, when it came out in 2003, it was heavily criticized, which really disheartened Medem, and he’s hardly made anything since.” Javi shared this with me during our drive to the train station.

A month and a half earlier, I’d been in southeastern Ireland, staying with Peter Zemo, a Slovakian who lived in Cork. Peter worked as a night-shift hotel manager at an international airport hotel and also ran an indie cinema with 60 single-screen theatres at the local cultural center. After moving to Cork a decade ago to work in hospitality, he decided to stay there. His degree in art history and love for cinema earned him the right to run the theater rent-free. Aside from donating his first year’s box office earnings to the cultural center, he was able to keep half of the profits from then on. Thanks to his good relationship with a fellow Slovakian curator who traveled widely, Peter always managed to secure films from Central and Eastern Europe. Because they were older than five years, he could bypass EU copyright restrictions and screen them royalty-free, charging just €5 per ticket. In 2016, he also started his own short film festival, receiving a €12,000 grant from the film alliance Visegrád Group (consisting of Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary). This funding allowed him to invite directors, and his job in hospitality made it easier for him to arrange sponsored accommodations for attendees. On one occasion, Peter organized a screening of F. W. Murnau’s classic silent “Faust” with a live soundtrack performed by an avant-garde rock band at the cultural center. During the intermission, he spent the entire time talking with a young woman in English, discussing everything from German Expressionism to the French Left Bank film movement. When their mutual friend returned from the restroom, he pointed out, “You both are Slovaks!” And that was how Peter found himself a girlfriend from his home country.

As his curatorial work matured, Peter took on more responsibilities, organizing several sections of the Cork International Film Festival and expanding his short film festival beyond the Visegrád Group into the IndieCork Film Festival, which now accepts global short film submissions. Earlier this year, I asked him to name his favorite film outside the Oscars, and his answer was Aki Kaurismäki’s “Fallen Leaves.”