Borderline is not only a diagnostic 'mark' of one of the most debated personality disorders, but can be viewed as a synonimous of "boundary line", i. e. "frontier". And frontiers appear in many senses (geo-political, multicultural, intra-familial, etc.) in the movies in competition presented in the 20th European Film Festival (Lecce, April 8-13, 2019). 

«In the Italian language dictionary De Mauro ‘border’  is defined as “the end, the extreme boundary of a territory”, but also as “transition zone close to a geographical, cultural, or administrative boundary”. In the Dictionary of the Italian language by Gabrielli (2008), ‘border’ (‘confine’ in Italian) is derived from ‘cum’ and ‘finis’, and therefore the etymology indicates something “that has an end (a limit) in common”. ‘Border’, then, refers to two complementary concepts: that of ‘distinction’, referring to separation; that of ‘transition’, referring to the passage from one state to the next» (Leo, 2012, pp.17-18). And the borders explored by the movies and the film-makers in the Festival are multi-layered and variegated.

Borders assumed to divide according to ethnic prejudice, for example, such as in the film "GENESIS" by àrpàd Bogdàn, in which the hatred against Roma people in Hungary touches the fate of a young Roma boy, whose childhood reaches a sudden and drastic end when he loses his family in a tragic and brutal attack. Then the young boy meets a young female lawyer, who undertakes the defence of one of the men facing trial for the part he reputedly played in this infamous series of racist murders. This chance encounter will change both their lives forever... In the words oof the film-maker: <<“Genesis" is about a story that is about family. It is about losing family, it is about never having a family, it is about protecting family. What could I possibly know about any of this, when I never grew up in a family? What could I possibly know, when here I am over thirty and have no family. What is it that I am trying to say? Am I trying to say that family is important, that we are nothing without family, we are not complete without family, that we need to take care of each other, that we need to overcome the limitations of our own selfishness, and similar cliches? I, as one who has only ever known a damaged family model, have got a lot to say about that secret, about that wonder, about that hell, about that heaven that is family.>>

Families are the "core business" of several movies. Generally, broken or one-parent families (such as in "Journey to a Mother's Room" by Celia Rico Clavellino, or "Two for Joy" by Tom Beard) or even absent at all (such as in "The Pig" by Dragomir Sholev). In these cases the borders between generations are enmeshed or confused: in "Two for Joy" a daughter, Vi (Emilia Jones) being  the caregiver of a depressed mother, Aysha (Samantha Morton) and the "mom" of a socially vulnerable brother, Troy (Badger Skelton) shows how a son can be resilient in such fragile one-parent families. At least up to the film's turnpoint, when a tragic accident, occured to Troy's playmate, and Aysha seems to accept a psychotherapy support to work through her husband's death. As Tom Beard writes: <<Problems that often begin at home and spill over into their lives, and are unfairly swept under the carpet, i wanted Two For Joy to offer up an unbiased and profound representation of some of those ideas. One of the situations that I was most shocked to hear about was the number of young people who had been taken away from their families and put into care, after a parent became too ill for them to look after. The stress and strain of caring for a parent whilst trying to juggle school and a normal childhood is unbelievable, and I was shocked at how little support there was in place for them from the government. (…) Finding young actors who have a raw unapologetic energy inside them worked for me whilst creating my short films, channelling this energy is what excites me about creating cinema. My films are about empowering youth, so the same should be said for the young people acting in them. Putting them in the room with older, experienced actors is the perfect way of nurturing and developing talent throughout the filming process.>>

In "The Pig" by Dragomir Sholev family borders are absent because there is no family : "Pig" (Rumen Georgiev) is a boy of 13, quite overweight for his age, whose parents are emigrated to UK (he lives with his granny). Everyone at school offends him and every day he suffers the bully of his classmates. An outsider, lonesome and self – absorbed, he is left aside from the games of the other kids. "Pig" is denied any possibility of resiliency because there is no "tutor oof resiliency" for him, that is  an education system providing for multiple attachments (if the primary ‘development tutor’  misses or is dysfunctional, vicarious attachment figures are important to be available) (Cyrulnik, 2010).

In the film "Jumpman" by Ivan I. Tverdovsky the only familial link represents really a danger for Dennis (Denis Vlasenko), grown up in an orphanage, where his mother left him soon after his birth. He is a special boy, who due to a rare illness is immune to pain. This makes him popular among his schoolmates, who take bets on how long he can endure cruel physical games. One day his mother (Anna Slyu) turns up out of the blue and takes him to Moscow. She  is frankly borderline and has with her adolescent son an overtly eroticized relationship (resembling the mother-adolescent relationship in "Mommy" by Xavier Dolan) ; but soon Dennis discovers that his mother ask him to play an even more dangerous game. She is part of a gang that extracts money from wealthy people and Dennis becomes someone who jumps in front of cars to blackmail the drivers. Dennis' dream to be reunited with his mother becomes a nightmare and finally Dennis starts feeling pain and have a breakdown, so serious that he prefers to return to the orphanage.

Family  borders to discover because misteriously engulfed by criminal plans are similarly present in the film "Stitches" by Miroslav Terzić but in this case the mother (Snezana Bogdanovic) suspects that her first son, officially declared dead at birth, is alive and was surreptitiously stolen from her family to be "adopted" by another family. It is matter of denied maternity. Based on true events, in particular on the case of Drinka Radonjic interviewed by the film-maker, in the film the main character is dismissed by others as paranoid but with a mother’s determination she summons the strength for one last battle against the police, the hospital bureaucracy and even her own family to uncover the truth.

Broken family relationships are also at the core of the film "Paper Flags" by Nathan Ambrosioni: a sister, Charlie (Noémie Merlant) and a brother, Vincent (Guillaume Gouix) gets together after 12 years, because he has just come out of prison. They discover to be both of them socially isolated persons: even Charlie has only sporadic meetings with their father. In this film 'borderline' is also a disturbed way of functioning in relationships on the part of Vincent, who suffered to be abandoned at 16. His disruptive behaviours to manage anger hinder his ability to reintegrate into society, even though he receive psychological support from penitentiary psychologist. 

Another story of reintegration into society after prison is the one of Oray (Zejhun Demirov) in the homonymous film by Mehmet Akif Buyukatalay, but here the society is confined to an ethnic minority, Turkish community in a German town. The reintegration is reinforced thanks to solidarity bonds among members, even when Oray, in an argument with his wife Burcu,  pronounces the Islamic word for separation, "talaq". The Imam informs him of the consequences: He must now part from Burcu for three months. Oray moves to Cologne and reinforces his strong relational bonds with the local Turkish community thanks to his participation to Muslim religious predicaments and duties. In the words of the film-maker, <<Oray examines the very strong need to belong of young male migrants and the problems it involves, originating in a hermetic microcosm which seals itself off to the outside world. A community that creates identities (which apparently the majority society cannot, or is not willing to provide) and that procures security, but also demands self-abandonment in case of deviations from its “internal laws“ –be it because of homosexuality or, as in Oray, the marriage to a wife no longer legitimate.

In addition to the process of finding one‘s self within a comingof- age film, Oray deals with aspects of marginalization as a result of migration, in as far as individual identity is always shaped by being  part of a minority in a segregating society. It is no secret that Islam, if one-dimensionally interpreted, can develop profoundly problematic traits. Yet, as any other religion, it is a complex system, which cannot be summed up in one sentence, nor in one film.>> For the record, "Oray" is the winner of the major award of the 20th European Film Festival.

A Special Award from the Festival Jury (chaired by Marco Muller) was given to the film "Cronofobia" by Francesco Rizzi. The main character, Michael (Vinicio Marchioni), is, in the words of Thomas Ogden (2016), an "unlived life", a man who since his birth received a name from a dead sibling. 

He is a mysterious and solitary man, constantly in motion, escaping his true self.

 During  the  day, he travels through Switzerland, creating new identities and

 evaluating the  quality of  customer service in  shops and hotel rooms, while at night,

 he secretly observes  the life of  Anna (Sabine Timoteo), a rebel woman struggling with

 a complicated form of  grief. After Anna  discovers  Michael’s obsession with her, a

 strange form of intimacy  develops between the two,  that soon turns into a tender

 yet disturbing relationship. But  this fragile balance is  threatened by a dark secret.

 Thanks to a series of flash-backs   concerning Michael, we discover what is the pattern

 connecting these two lives: Michael caused the firing and then the suicide of Anna's

  husband. The film is very  efficacious in representing several dissociated self-states

  (Bromberg, 2014) in both the  characters, Anna and  Michael, with a couple collusion

 resonating in the game in which  Michael takes on himself the identity of  Anna's

  husband. 

The film "Blind Spot" by Tuva Novotny deals with a double 'borderline': that between

 adolescence and adult age, and that between mental health and mental illness: in the

 words of the film-maker <<I wrote the script when I experienced a silence culture around

 the subject regards mental illness among young people. Reading about  several cases of

 very young suicidal cases in Norway, I experienced a lack of openness and discussion

 about mental disorders - both in home environments and in the public debate. I also

discovered that the conducted conversations often were characterized by guilt and

 cause, rather than acceptance and openness.>>

Finally, the film "Her Job" by Nikos Labot deals with a specific "borderline", that between social and economic crisis (the Greek one), on one side, and personal and existential crisis on the other side. As the film-maker said <<Her Job is also a political film, not only because it is set during the crisis and clearly describes the decaying portrait of a society through its working and social relationships, but also because we preferred to show the crisis’ impact on our characters’ emotional and personal lives, which is negative but, surprisingly, also positive in a way that it brings Panayiota a new life and sense of self.>>

BROMBERG. Ph., (2014), Standing in the Spaces, Psychology Press.

GABRIELLI, A. (2008), Vocabolario della lingua italiana, Hoepli, Milano.

Leo, G. (Ed.) (2012), Psychoanalysis and its Borders, Frenis Zero, Lecce (Italy).  

OGDEN, Th (2016), Reclaiming Unlived Life, Rouledge, New York.