Selfie

Selfie is a unique record of the case of 16-year-old Davide Bifolco, who was shot dead by a carabiniere in the Neapolitan district of Traiano. To understand a neighbourhood often portrayed as a ghetto and ‘Camorra’ stronghold, as well as the circumstances of Davide’s death, director Agostino Ferrente seeks out Davide’s friends and meets Pietro and Alessandro. In the film’s introduction he is heard asking off-camera, ‘tell me about your friendship’, which reveals his approach to this consistently collaborative documentary-fiction project. Equipping the boys with a mobile phone and a microphone, he asks them to document their everyday lives as a ‘selfie’ film, whether they are riding a scooter, at the beach, hanging out with friends or on the toilet. This turns out to be the perfect format in an age where self-dramatisation often becomes a product. The result is an impressive collage, both visually and in the film’s audio track, about adolescence; about lives where your background determines your future; about state despotism; about anger and grief, but above all about a tender boyhood friendship in a male world in which toughness reigns. (Berlinale)

In partnership with the Italian Institute of Culture in Montreal