Selfie

Directed by Agostino Ferrente, this Italian documentary consists of footage shot by two sixteen year old friends in Naples's Rione Traiano district, Alessandro, a barista, and Pietro, who wants to be a barber, filming themselves on a phone in selfie mode at the director's instruction. The whole film was shot on a smartphone, and the most striking credit is this: both boys are formally credited as cinematographers. There is a real event behind it. In September 2014, seventeen year old Davide Bifolco from the same neighborhood was shot dead at the end of a chase by an on duty carabiniere. He was unarmed, and the officer said he had mistaken him for a wanted fugitive. The officer was convicted of negligent homicide at first instance, but a 2018 appeal settlement suspended his sentence and lifted his ban from public office, and he remains in service. Davide was a neighbor and friend of these two boys, and it was that killing that led Ferrente to hand them the camera. The film premiered in the Panorama section at the Berlinale and won Best Documentary at the David di Donatello, Italy's most prestigious film award, yet took only fifty two thousand euros at the box office. Who it's for: Anyone drawn to documentaries where the subject holds the camera, and curious about the unseen neighborhoods of Naples. Who it's not for: Not for viewers wanting professional imagery, since the film runs entirely on the raw idiom of a phone camera.