‘Do you want to film yourself?’ Narrating the personal and rewriting reality in Agostino Ferrente’s Selfie (2019)

Abstract

ABSTRACT Focusing on two teenagers grappling with the difficult reality of Naples, Agostino Ferrente’s Selfie (2019) is a powerful depiction of an entire community at a significant time, when limited perspectives and the pervasive presence of organized crime – with a value system that is intrinsic to the Camorra – deeply influence the present and the future of a generation. Shot by two 16-year-old boys from the Traiano district (Naples), the film is a powerful example of how self-representation can be a strategic and political tool to immerse in a life and its context. Within the framework of studies on first-person filmmaking and self-representation, and mobilizing concepts from the theory of mobile films, this article argues that, through the filming carried out by the two teenagers, Selfie is able to offer us a wider glimpse of a generation, of its everyday life and imagination, and of its perception of the contemporary media imaginary. I argue that, by employing a reflexive mode of documentary and the linguistic forms of the photographic selfie, the film engages the spectator in an intimate flow of images, questioning authorial instances, the relationship of the iGeneration with filming devices, and the different approaches and aesthetic choices that form the basis of every representation of reality.