Nisida, grandir en prison

Nisida is the name of a pebble-sized volcanic island poised in the Bay of Naples. A truly magnificent location. It is also a high, sturdy edifice with few openings-a prison, a penal institution where forty or so minors are detained. Lara Rastelli followed the lives of four of them from March 2003 to September 2004, filming under the constraint that the boys wore masks (which they made themselves). As the visits accumulate over time, a trust grows up between the filmmaker and the four teenagers, and transforms what could have been a mechanical recording into a mirror in which the different character facets of Rosario, Enzo, Samir and Ali will become recomposed, reunified. (Yann Lardeau)