Team: Affinity Cinematics
Greg, wanting to prove his courage, joins the drug trafficking business. The naive drug mule finds himself giving into his friends’ jeers – Ryan, Ulan and his boss, Dave. Below the camaraderie, he questions the consequences of their actions onto others. After one wrong move, he pieces the fragments of his choices, longing for the quaint life he once had. This year, we chose to tell the story of a drug mule, rather than a drug abuser, to highlight the wider scope of drug abuse and exploitation in the world. Society often simplifies drug narratives into black-and-white roles: “Drug users” = victims “Drug traffickers” = villains But the reality is far more complex. In the shadows of drug networks are ordinary people, used as tools by those at the top. These drug traffickers don’t just avoid capture — they design systems that sacrifice others to protect themselves. People like Greg are lured in not because they want to break the law, but because they crave belonging, recognition, money, or are even drug users themselves — desperate for access they can’t afford. This creates a pipeline of expendable lives — youth who dig their own graves for someone else’s profit. Yet despite the scale of this problem, there’s very little awareness or prevention targeted at drug mules themselves. In competitions and campaigns, we often focus solely on drug users. But mules, too, can be victims of influence — manipulated, discarded, and forgotten. Through Fragments, I hope to open up conversations around every level of the drug trade — from users and traffickers to the exploited middlemen. Because if we’re serious about tackling drug abuse, we must look at every angle, not just the most visible ones.
