With schools jumping back in session, we’re highlighting Frédéric Da’s debut feature Teenage Emotions, a raw peak at the contemporary high school experience entirely shot on iPhones. Da’s film is informed by high school film tropes yet feels remarkably authentic thanks to its refreshing vérité style and moving performances from real-life high schoolers.

Teenage Emotions follows an intersecting cast of high schoolers with relatable social problems. There are noticeably no scenes of actual classes, implying that most of what goes on in high school takes place in the halls. Filmed on site at New Roads High School in Santa Monica, California, where Da was teaching film production at the time, the film’s volunteer cast and crew were all students interested in the filmmaking process. Da’s close collaboration with his teenage contemporaries lends a great empathy to the characters and their adolescent milieu.

“Teenage Emotions came out of seeing my students connect with shows like Euphoria or films like Eighth Grade which I really respect, but are quite stylized. I wanted to bring my own influences to the table, drawing from Wiseman and early Kiarostami, and use the iPhone the way filmmakers used 16mm cameras in the ’60s: as a tool to gain access to new worlds. The idea was to make a film that was raw and anti-aesthetic, with real teens filming each other in close-ups to blur the line between fiction and reality.” FRÉDÉRIC DA

The choice to film entirely on iPhones wasn’t just a creative choice, it was also a practical one. This minimal amount of gear allowed the production to happen piecemeal during spare class periods and lunch breaks. Informal scenes were captured in long unbroken takes on multi-cam set-ups and later rigorously edited into the vignettes for the final film. Da has stated that editing the students’ mostly improvised, free-wheeling conversations was like “sculpting” a cohesive narrative out of fragmented storylines.

Frédéric Da is a Paris-based filmmaker interested in adolescence and academic environments. He holds a BA in Cinema Studies from New York University and taught film production and theory at New Roads High School in Santa Monica, CA, for several years. Following the release of Teenage Emotions, Da was included in Filmmaker Magazine’s 25 New Faces of Independent Film. His follow-up feature isiah’s phone, a found iPhone footage film about a quiet highschooler who films himself committing a “horrific act of violence,” premiered at the 2025 Mammoth Lakes Film Festival and received an Honorable Mention Award.

Text written by Milo Straghalis.