Short Film
THE BORDER
Directed by CARLO FUMO
AFIN 2026 Nominee
- 2026
- 14m
-
Italy - English, French, Italian, Spanish
- MA 15+
- Drama
- Social
- Romance
Stills
9 frames Still in the running. Winner announced at Awards Night, 19 September 2026.
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Credits
Written by
Produced by
Cinematography
Editing
Music & Sound
Production Company
- Italian Movie Award
Synopsis
In a nameless land, at night, two teenagers who communicate through an invented sign language decide to escape. Wrapped in blankets, they cross an arid and hostile territory toward an invisible border. Unseen by those who watch, they run toward freedom, while indifference turns into tragedy. THE BORDER is a silent, universal fable about love, war, and the moment when it is already too late to choose.
Director's Statement
I chose a deliberately linear, classical and rigorous cinematic language, because my intention was not to impress through form, but to lead the audience into a theatre of war that has no coordinates, no flags, no name. A place that could be anywhere - and therefore concerns everyone. The film refuses any spectacle of conflict. War is never shown directly: it exists as a sonic presence, as constant pressure, as an invisible threat surrounding the characters and the space. It is sound - not music - that builds anxiety, tension and fear. I wanted the audience to feel the war before understanding it, to breathe its weight even in the most intimate moments. For the same reason, I chose not to use any recognizable language. The two protagonists communicate through an invented sign language, created specifically for the film. It belongs to no country. It is a language of love, necessity and survival. The only bridge to the audience is through subtitles: words that connect, but never reveal an origin, an identity, or a place. Faces are mostly hidden. We only see eyes. Because the eyes are the only true homeland of human beings. I did not want representative characters, but universal bodies, figures in which anyone could recognize themselves, a son, a daughter, a love. The film is built like a classical tragedy: the characters have the possibility to choose, but they do not know that their choices are leading them exactly toward what they are trying to escape. Parents become executioners without knowing it. Not out of cruelty, but out of obedience, distance, indifference. This is where the film stops being about war and starts being about us. For this reason, in the end credits I chose to include the names of filmmakers, artists and audiovisual professionals who were killed or died in wars over the last hundred years, marked “in memory of”. Not as a rhetorical gesture, but as a political and human one: to remember that war does not only kill bodies, it erases voices, stories and possibilities. THE BORDER is not a film about a geographical border. It is a film about the moral border between responsibility and indifference. And about how often, without realizing it, we choose to stand on the wrong side.
What makes this one special
- Australian PremiereThe filmmaker tells us this is where it happens
- Nominated for Best Student Narrative Short Form
Director's Biography
CARLO FUMO Director
Carlo Fumo is an Italian director, screenwriter and producer, as well as a TV author and journalist. He was born in Oliveto Citra, Italy, in 1986 and is currently based between Italy and New York, where he works as a correspondent for Rai Italia. He began his career as an independent filmmaker in 2004 with Life, Love and Destiny, followed by I Wish I Could Paint the Sun (2007) and Checkmate (2008). In 2011, he presented his first book The Director of the World at the Turin International Book Fair and directed a short film based on it, which won 44 awards at national and international festivals and was also presented in Cannes. In the following years, he directed social campaigns for Rai and Mediaset, music videos, documentaries, and several television formats. In 2020 he created, produced and directed the TV series PizzaGirls, which became a major ratings success in Italy. He later directed and produced other TV programs for Rai and Mediaset, including Tu Vuò Fa’ l’Americano, Linea Azzurri, and multiple seasons of PizzaGirls. Alongside his audiovisual work, he is also the author of the novel Humanoma - The Virus Is Us, presented at the Italian Senate in 2022, and director of documentaries dealing with social and environmental issues. Since 2009, he has been the founder, president and artistic director of the Italian Movie Award, an international film award held in New York, now in its fifteenth edition, which has received official recognition from the President of the Italian Republic, the Italian Senate and the Chamber of Deputies. He has served on juries of several international film festivals and is actively involved in education, teaching directing and cinema in various institutions and professional programs. Since 2015, he has been an annual speaker at the United Nations for the PLURAL+ Youth Video Festival. In 2026 he directs the short film THE BORDER and the feature documentary The Portrait of the Pope, while continuing his work in both cinema and television between Europe and the United States.
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THE BORDER was an official Nominee for Best Student Narrative Short Form at the AFIN International Film Festival 2026, a Top 100 Best Reviewed and IMDb-qualifying festival.
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