Californie is the first fiction feature by documentarists Alessandro Cassigoli and Casey Kauffman, well known for the awarded Butterfly (2018), developed during three years following the rise, fall and rebirth of Irma Testa, an Italian boxer who just won a bronze medal at the Tokyo Olympics. Californie is the ideal link between documentary and fiction. Californie has been shot across five years and tells the story of Jamila, a nine years Moroccan girl who lives in a port town in the south of Italy. Jamila has dreams, role models and she’s curious about life, but she’s also hardening and becoming diffident because of her struggles and the continuous sense of emargination.
She starts to idealize her country of birth, where she wants to come back. She then decides to leave school and working full time in the hair salon “Californie” to become one day a good hairdresser.
CALIFORNIE
First feature
Italy, 2021, Directed by Alessandro Cassigoli, Casey Kauffman, With Khadija Jaafari, Ikram Jaafari, Maria Amato, Lenght 78’
