Website: www.antennafestival.org
Selfie
Agostino Ferrente | Italy | 2019 | 77 mins
In this funny and original film, teenagers and best friends Pietro and Allesandro make a selfie-style documentary about their rough Naples neighbourhood in the wake of local police killing their friend. Accepting director Agostino Ferrente’s proposal to film themselves with an iPhone, they document every minute of their lives: dreaming, fantasising, sweating and having fun, but also losing hope. The result is an impressive collage about adolescence; about lives where your background determines your future; about anger and grief; but above all about a tender boyhood friendship in a male world where toughness reigns.
Agostino Ferrente is a guest of the festival and will take part in Q&A after the screenings.
The screening on October 18 at Riverside Theatre will be followed by a masterclass with Agostino Ferrente supported by the University of Western Sydney.
The Disappearance of My Mother
Beniamino Barrese | Italy | 2019 | 94 min
Benedetta Barzini wants to disappear. As a supermodel in the 60s, she became a muse to Warhol, Dali and Avedon. As a radical feminist in the 70s, she fought for women rights. Now, at the age of 75, she’s fed up with all the roles that life has imposed upon her and decides to disappear to a place as far as possible from the world she knows. But her son Beniamino will not let go. He is determined to make a film about her, to keep her close for as long as possible. His obsession and her resistance intertwine, and what begins as a deeply personal fight for control transforms into a profoundly collaborative project, which is both a reflection on the power of images and an original study of liberation.
“Engrossing. I just found Benedetta to be an extraordinarily interesting woman.” — nonfics
Beniamino Barrese is a guest of the festival and will take part in Q&A after the screenings.