Selfie at Antenna Documentary Film Fest
Selfie is currently playing at this year’s Antenna Documentary Film Festival. We asked Addy Fong to go and check it out for us:
Supported by a smart phone and a selfie stick, Agostino Ferrente’s Selfie follows two Neapolitan teenagers Alessandro and Pietro as they navigate their way through dealing with the loss of their friend Davide Bifolco who was shot dead by a policeman in 2014. The film which follows the boys’ life in Naples is composed of footage shot by Alessandro and Pietro in the form of a mobile selfie as well as footage from surveillance cameras which help break the long periods of constantly observing Alessandro and Pietro’s faces in foreground whilst being made aware of what’s going on around them in the background.
Ferrente, who granted of the teens with the task of filming their lives on mobile phones, constructs a film that makes for an interesting approach to storytelling that lends itself to contemporary methods less concerned with what we often believe to be the conventional elements of documentary such as interviews with a variety of participants, observational footage shot by a documentary crew, and the use news or archival footage. Instead, Selfie being shot almost entirely on mobile empowers our two protagonists-turned-filmmakers, allowing them to choose and curate what they filmed and show in a story that is deeply personal, novel and hilarious and at times depicting the many aspects of friendship between two teenage boys.
Both sixteen and having dropped out of school, Alessandro, a waiter who serves coffee at a bar and Pietro, an aspiring barber live in an environment where the life of crime is the norm for teens living in their situation. It is interesting to see the two of them converse about not wanting to turn to a life of crime and see how the two friends use the task of filming and interviewing others about Davide as a way to help them fight boredom and keep themselves motivated. Throughout the film we witness the aftermath of Alessandro and Pietro’s community dealing with the grief of losing Davide after the shooting, the consequence of crime not only affecting the individual who committed it the crime but those who are left with the consequences of dealing such actions.
Often, Selfie shows the teens filming themselves in seemingly mundane and unflattering situations doing ordinary things audiences may find dull. At first I questioned the inclusion of this footage given that Ferrente would have had hundreds of hours to choose from to portray a story that lends itself to drama and sensationalism. Upon reflection, it is the mundane that lends itself to authenticity and believability because the mundane is ordinary. Perhaps this may be credited to my consumption and familiarity of the vlogging medium, in which online creators actively choose to show themselves in the most flattering angles and place themselves in fun and exciting situations in order to gain clicks or views.
In a world of fake news and inflated egos, the concept of vlogs, selfies and online video as well as the constant encouragement to create engaging content often leads to skeptical viewers such as myself to question the authenticity of those filming as they are aware of the camera; are they being truly themselves in the story or are they putting on a persona? Is this just an act or is there truths in this documentary that is biased towards their perspective as the friends of Davide Bifolco?
Whilst watching, I found myself questioning whether Selfie was a documentary or a staged piece of fiction. New forms storytelling and the ease, convenience and portability of filmmaking equipment blurs the distinction between the trained and amateur, the authentic and realistic. Regardless of what the answer actually is, when a story is this personal does it really matter?
Perhaps a personal device, perhaps an outlet for performance, the strength of Selfie being shot on a mobile is that it acts almost like a personal blog capturing two teenage boys working through their collective grief in coping with the loss of their friend. At times, whilst watching it felt as if I scrolling through their personal memories and the seeing their selfie videos made it feel like I was invading or violating their privacy. That said, the beauty of Selfie is that it helps draw viewers in and makes audiences feel included. By providing teens with a mobile to film themselves, Ferrente removes the barrier between subject and audience by removing the intermediary, the filmmaker who may even subconsciously be biased in choosing what to film. By allowing the subject to become the filmmaker, the film takes on a more intimate portrayal of a story that could never be achieved by traditional means of documentary.
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Selfie plays again on the 26th of October. Find out more about the festival and get tickets here: http://antennafestival.org/
Review by Addy Fong.
