Well, if the goal of a festival is to introduce new movies, the 14th edition of FIFE did great in the sense that it portrayed a new genre with YOLO.
Movies have been pouring from everywhere since Tuesday. They made us cry, laugh, anxious, excited and all the emotions the 7th art is supposed to make us feel. But Karim Bey’s documentary brought us something else. Imagine a mix between having a conversation with your best friend or your child, a conversation that solves issues in their depths because you finally understand them, and looking in a mirror or watching an old video of yourself of a time you had forgotten.
The documentary takes you to a place most people don’t want to go to… the mind of teenagers. For 54 minutes, you can see raw footages of raw teenage thoughts, becoming witnesses of their inner problems and doubts, but also their ability to see and learn from the world. Facing things that may seem trivial to an outside eye, the movie makes the matter matter and the unrelated relate.
Karim Bey’s work is remarkable. The core of the documentary is in the quality of the kids’ speeches, and that probably wouldn’t have been possible without the director’s passionate and clever involvement. Indeed, Bey has been confident in them, embodying the authority figure and the trusted friend since 2016. Their relationship made him, the teens and the audience grow with its authenticity.
In other words, an ambitious and innovating project, a risky, bumpy and original production, and a game-changing result for the youth and those who want to understand it.
Hassana Chati
