The teenage state of being-poised between childhood and adulthood, one's identity not yet fully shaped, one's ideas and passions subject to the pull of emotions-has a raw, compelling power. It is why youth are often used figuratively in films and literature to suggest an honesty and vulnerability missing in adult life. Yet the reality of the teen years, so complex to negotiate, is rarely seen on the mainstream screen. All the films in this summer's installment of Screenagers (an intermittent series at PFA) feature youth; the majority also involve some level of collaboration between filmmakers and adolescents. Actors improvise dialogue and teens play themselves, a young woman collaborates on a script, youth shoot footage and narrate video diaries. Cinema becomes a vehicle for young people to tell their own stories, or ones very like theirs. It may not be life itself, but it is a representation of life largely unadorned by sentimentality and stereotypes, unfiltered by faulty memory and good intentions. It is everyday life as young people see it, with all its complications, banalities, and pleasures.
