BORDERLINE
Screening: Sunday, November 8, 2026, 2:00 pm
Actor Šarūnas Zenkevičius will present a Q&A following the screening.
Borderline (Sienna)
Director: Ignas Jonynas
110 min. Lithuania, 2025
In Lithuanian with English subtitles
New York Premiere
Q&A to follow with actor Šarūnas Zenkevičius
After his wife’s death, mourning 40-year-old ornithologist Vilius is left alone to look after his daughter, Urte. Driving home one day, he accidentally hits a group of smugglers evading border control guards. Impressed by the bird-tracking GPS in Vilius’ car, the criminals offer him a job—and seduced by the high pay and an escape from his daily struggles, Vilius agrees. Soon he begins tracking smuggled goods across the border, rather than migrating birds. But then one day a smuggler assigned to watch his house attacks Urte, placing Vilius in an impossible situation. When he receives his next job, he must make sure it won’t be his last.
Borderline was awarded Best Baltic Film at the PÖFF (Tallinn Black Nights) in 2025, and actor Šarūnas Zenkevičius received the European Shooting Star at Berlinale (2025) and Best Actor for Borderline at Lithuania’s Silver Crane Awards (2026)
Director bio:
Ignas Jonynas (b. 1971) studied television directing at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. He made his cinematic debut with the short feature film Sunday As It Is (2003) followed by Dancing Worm (2006), which won the Audience Award at Circuito Off Venice International Short Film Festival. Moral choices, measuring one’s conscience and betting on death are all explored in his full-length feature The Gambler (2013), the first film from the Baltic countries to premiere at the San Sebastián Film Festival. The Gambler was awarded the Special Jury Prize at the Warsaw Film Festival, Special Jury Award and the Prix Luna for Best Film at the l’Europe autour de l’Europe film festival (Paris); Silver Dolphins for Best Script and Best Actor (Vytautas Kaniušonis) at the Festroia International Film Festival in Setúbal (Portugal); and five National Silver Crane Awards in 2014. The film became the first example of successful cinematic collaboration between Lithuania and Latvia.