Selfie Vampiro
2017 · 10m · España
Directed by César Ríos
Genres: comedy, coming-of-age
A group of ordinary young people searches for a perfect selfie and finds funniest, most original faces alongside heroic faces within. The hunt doubles as an appeal for blood donation to save lives.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Selfie Vampiro tries to weaponize viral narcissism for social good, which is genuinely weird, but the execution plays it too safe — it's a PSA wearing a comedy costume, and that's exactly the kind of consensus-friendly hybrid that makes me suspicious.
Ríos locates this film in a lineage of socially conscious Latin American cinema that uses vernacular forms (here, the selfie) as formal constraint; the editing rhythms suggest an awareness of how TikTok grammar can serve something beyond itself.
The entire film hinges on one directorial decision: treating the selfie-taking as sincere rather than satirical, which lets the performers' vulnerability dissolve the boundary between vanity and genuine connection — that tonal trust is what makes a ten-minute blood drive pitch actually land.