My True Brilliant Friend

Clarissa Cappellani's 2018 Italian documentary follows two young girls cast in the leads of a major television series. Neither had acted before; the documentary follows the process from the auditions to the end of filming. The subject is being caught unprepared. The girls are suddenly at the centre of a large production; their school, family and friends stay the same while their working lives change entirely, and neither knows what that means. Cappellani stays behind the set and does not enter the content of the series. Although the director and crew appear, the real interest is the relationship between the two girls; the resemblance between them and the characters they play is discussed inside the narrative. Who it's for: those who watched the series and like documentaries about production. Who it's not for: viewers unfamiliar with it; the documentary does not introduce the content and assumes the context.