Amateur
2019 · 15m · Italy
Directed by Simone Bozzelli
On a hot afternoon, Serena helps Christopher study German — until he starts filming her, and she lets him.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
A German lesson turning into guerrilla performance—it's cute, sure, but the premise feels more like a sketch than a genuine subversion; I'm waiting for the film to break its own rules, and it never quite does.
Bozzelli locates a precise tonal register between comedy and intimacy, and the film's restraint in editing—knowing when to hold on a glance rather than cut—situates it in a lineage of tender, formally aware European shorts that prize observation over plot.
The entire film hinges on that single moment when Serena agrees to be filmed, a micro-decision of vulnerability that rewires the power dynamic and suddenly transforms a study session into something performed, mutual, alive—it's the kind of choice that costs nothing and changes everything.