Berlinale film festival-films a Selfie and Midnight Traveler : How the Smartphone is changing the documentary film

Almost everyone has a Smartphone. And all the time. No other device connects so completely with the world. Nevertheless, it Ekes out a living, as measured by its artistic possibilities, a miserable existence. Although the network is flooded with Fail Videos, and many happy to stick with the phone camera, what you are about to experience is made up of these everyday fragments rarely a narrative. Who would believe, the own life is significant enough to make it to the fabric of a narrative Selfies?

Also in the case of Pietro and Alessandro, two young people from Naples, was the. You thought you were nothing. You talked about her like she was Dirt. It should have given last hopes in respect of their value, they were destroyed, as you abknallte your best friend. Davide Bifolco was 17 when he was on 5. September 2014 allowed 2 o'clock at night on his Moped to the stupidity of a chase with the police. As a Carabinieri found him and a dozen other guys in a cafe, the shot was fired, the met Davide in the chest.

Selfie, therefore I am

After a lot of thought in Naples, that it would go as always. The police officer claimed that his gun accidentally went off, would come of it, the matter will be hushed up. No one would be interested in the case after a few months. Because Davide Bifolco was from Traiano, a notorious Mafia district. There's a Boy with a bullet in the chest but was obviously just what just happened.

And sure, it would just come, would not have a Director Agostino Ferrente had a pretty good idea. He turned to the two closest friends Bifolcos, but instead of a Film about them to turn from the distance, he gave Pietro and Alessandro, a Smartphone and asked them to document their everyday lives – so that they would always be in the picture. So Selfie is"", a cinematic approximation of the two friends to themselves. The Smartphone is your constant companion as you about bowls of Pasta bent back Verd, on Mopeds through the streets the lawn and in the heat of summer scorching think about their career prospects, Davide and how much you miss him.

self-empowerment with a Selfie. Scene from "Selfie".Photo: Berlinale

Initially, you react in a visibly awkward in the handling of the camera. Especially Pietro, a stout fellow, whose Obesity him moaning and sweating, fremdelt with his looks, for him, a lot of make ready. He would like to be a hairdresser, if you give him a Chance, washing and dressing his buddy occasionally hair. All Sandro has found a Job in an espresso bar. Once you make a trip to the sea, where the better neighborhoods have their own entrances to the coves on the Gulf of Naples. And you're wondering whether you or one of your children could live there ever. "Do you have an idea of how high the Rents are here?" ask all of Sandro. So to see two young men in "Selfie" to be yourself and to recognize yourself slowly. Ferrente it comes to this self-empowerment: Selfie, therefore I am. The official Version of the violence in the Traiano is the opposite of a truthful history. Like the "Direct Cinema" of the ' 50s benefited from moving hand-held cameras, to be closer to the profane life, that's what we call normality, also wants to merge the mobile cinema with the reality of life of the protagonists. The pictures are out of focus, blurred, incoherent. Principle of order is the Collage. From the Abundance of visual impressions of the Suction that pulls in external life develops.

Both films are about people without a Chance

"Midnight Traveler" by Hassan Facility, and Fatima Hossaini escape history experienced by the Afghan Couple with their two daughters, formed the frame. Your Odyssey of Mazar-e-Sharif to Hungary has taken three years. With three mobile devices, you've made it into a road movie, this is much more than just a kind of log of the self-rescue of a family. "Midnight Traveler" opposes the fear, frustration and grueling boredom is a poetry of the moment, the raptures of cloud formations, Bird, the Laughter of children, the conversations of the parents. The rescue is also the good image.

Interactive map: All of the Berlinale cinemas and the program

the Facility, and Hossaini understand as a filmmaker. She was in her home, the actress, he made a documentary about a Taliban leader who was executed after the Premiere. Facility, was forced to go underground, artist café was closed. The request for asylum to Australia consisted of hundreds of pages, but it was rejected. He had to travel to the border of Europe, he says, to make his claim. But the road ends in a Hungarian detention camp as a "transit zone" in the people behind barbed wire for months, waiting for information. A high-security prison, condemned to do nothing and Disappear. "I want to forget," says the daughter, "this place soon." Is it a coincidence that Smartphone-action films of people who have no Chance?

Because in the case of "Selfie" it is exactly so. See what it is, is not, however, the social aspect, the Ghetto - look. But, he shows a wonderful friendship. The intensified stage is the fact that the film project gives the two protagonists the opportunity, typical Mafia Iconography, which all Parties find very funny. The hardening of the district, are the boys. During a 14-told Year that you remain a man forever loyal and his children would raise if he went to prison, you know that the heart is good, we are out of breath, Pietro would never be that man.

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"La paranza dei bambini" in the Berlinale competition When children are offenders

Peter Becker

"Selfie", 13.2., 17.30 (Cubix 7), 15.2., 22 PM (Zoo Palast 2); "Midnight Traveler", 13.2., 14: 30 (Colosseum 1), 15.2., 12 Am (Cinestar 7), 16.2., 14 At (International), 17.2., 14: 30 (Cinestar 7)