The comedian Daniel Kitson once reflected on how wrong we get other people.
Our tendency, he explained, is to extrapolate small bits of information into a picture of what someone is like. But that picture may be totally unrecognisable to the person in question.
So if you tell someone that you went swimming and had a sandwich this morning, they may go away thinking, wow, that swimmer bloody loves sandwiches.
I think the same thing happens with places. We take stories or impressions that may be atypical, reductive or misleading, and enlarge them into a fixed idea of what that place is.
That process is galvanised if, like Naples, you’re fixed in the culture by shows like the mafia drama Gomorrah which paint a very particular picture.
There is no quick or easy way to unpick this. It requires storytellers to seek out and capture alternatives, which is exactly what Victoria Fiore did.
Fire Games of Napoli (2018) follows a group of boys as they prepare for the San Antonio Day bonfires.
Every year on January 17, fierce competition breaks out among different gangs who want to build the biggest bonfire using the city’s discarded Christmas trees.
This ritual has courted controversy among those who believe it’s a sort of gateway drug into crime, and Victoria deals with that head-on. There are guns, molotov cocktails, talk of prison and exasperated parents.
But this is a different portrait of Naples.
You’re struck time and again by how young the boys are – their braggadocio rings hollow. It’s more like a game to them, a cosplay of criminality for want of a better option.
Fundamentally I think it’s a film about pride – in a city, a tradition, and the friendships that mean everything when you’re still figuring out what the universe has in store for you.
I spoke with Victoria over Zoom from Brazil where she spends half the year. You can see more of her work on her website and her Instagram.
Why did you want to tell this story?
I’m from Naples and my family is from Naples. After having made films in several different places, I really wanted to go back and look at certain themes.
When Gomorrah the book – and then the series – came out, it was almost as though the dirty laundry of Naples had been exposed. They were things that people knew about, but we didn’t really speak about.
There was a whole franchise of negative stories – they might be true, but it doesn’t feel like the Naples I know.
One of my best friends, Eleonora dell'Aquila, is a social worker in the Spanish Quarter and she was doing a film workshop with the kids.
So that’s what sparked it – I wanted to ask the kids, ‘How would you tell the story of Naples from your perspective? What would you shoot? How would you shoot it? How would you speak about it?’
They really wanted to tell the story of the San Antonio Day bonfires, so we arranged to get GoPro’s for the kids and they could go around and tell us how it works.
We really had no intention of it becoming a documentary in itself until we realised how good the material was.
It was shot with the intention to try and find characters and storylines that could be developed into a feature film.
It was only quite a while later– seven or eight months after shooting – that the my producer Aleksandra Bilic said that we should make it into a film.
What were the biggest challenges?
The biggest headache was Vice had a policy that you had to get both parents’ signatures for each kid in the film, and there were about 50. A lot of these children have parents who are in jail, and it was a long process chasing every single parent.
In the beginning, it wasn’t easy being a woman on my own on set in a group full of boys. It’s an extremely sexist society.
The moment that Alfredo (De Juan), the Director of Photography, came in and was able to establish himself as a senior male figure changed everything. I think on my own I wouldn't have been able to get the same access or intimacy with the kids.
What would you do differently if you made the film again?
I’m not the biggest fan of sit-down interviews, so I’d probably look to make it with less of those and try and get more of the information out as things are happening.
Obviously there was a lot to explain, but I just feel there could be ways of making docs feel more like fiction. I’m happy to use these interviews when they’re necessary, but I feel more immersed if I’m not being told a story, but I’m discovering it as I go along.
What are you most proud of?
The connection we made with the kids. I’m proud that we made something we’re all proud of.
How did making this film change you?
The film did quite well and sparked interest in the feature, Nascondino, which developed out of that.
So it was the springboard to make a much bigger project. If I hadn't been throwing myself out at this story and running behind it, it’s very possible the feature film wouldn’t have been made and I wouldn’t have a film coming out in the cinema.
I think short films are necessary to get to that next step – whatever that next step is – in your career.
As a person it changed me too. I realised that you can’t go into a situation, especially as a filmmaker, thinking you are going to change it, or save anyone. That’s a very egocentric way of thinking.
All you can do is be true to the subject, without going in with ideas like, will they see themselves differently? Will it make their lives better? They are the only ones who can do that.
I think it’s fascinating that this brilliant film was never meant to be a film. Sometimes the most engaging creative work happens when we’re not trying too hard to force it.
Huge thanks to Victoria, and to Jessica Best for editing this interview. Victoria’s feature length documentary, Nascondino, is out now.
And thanks as ever for reading. You can always reply to this email or leave a comment if you’d like to get in touch.