The Young Saint and the Digital Age

Every year, one million pilgrims visit his tomb in Assisi. Eighty thousand faithful attended his canonization, celebrated on September 7, 2025, in St. Peter’s Square by Pope Leo XIV. He is Carlo Acutis, the young saint who shaped the relationship between faith and modernity, and whose testimony continues to attract believers and the curious from all over the world.

Twenty years after his passing, his story will be the focus of the first event in the new film series ‘The Mysteries of Faith,’ a project by Nexo Studios dedicated to exploring spirituality, the relationship between humanity and the divine, and the profound meaning of existence. On October 15, the documentary ‘CARLO ACUTIS. THE YOUNG SAINT,’ produced by Officina della Comunicazione, Nexo Studios, and OUR FILMS, A Mediawan Company, with the sponsorship of the Friends of Carlo Acutis Association and in collaboration with the Cariplo Foundation, directed by Luca Salmaso and dedicated to the young man who forever changed the way faith is told in the 21st century, will be released in theaters. The film will be in Italian cinemas from October 15 to 21. Tickets are on sale and the list of theaters is available at nexostudios.it and at http://carloacutisfilm.it/.

In Campania, the following cinemas are participating:
– Afragola, Happy Maxicinema
– Benevento, Gaveli
– Casoria, Uci Casoria
– Cava Dei Tirreni, Alambra
– Marcianise, Uci
– Mirabella Eclano, Carmen
– Naples, The Space
– Nola, The Space
– Piano Di Sorrento, Delle Rose
– Poggiomarino, Eliseo
– Salerno, The Space
– Sant’Anastasia, Metropolitan (17,18/10)
– Torre Annunziata, Nexus Maximall
– Torre Del Greco, Corallo

‘CARLO ACUTIS. THE YOUNG SAINT’ tells the life and spiritual legacy of Carlo Acutis (1991-2006), the first saint of the digital era, through an intimate and contemporary perspective that highlights his human dimension even before his religious one. Made with the participation of Carlo Acutis’s parents and previously unseen material—including photographs, private videos, exclusive content, and footage of the canonization thanks to Vatican Media cameras—the film offers an authentic portrait of a boy who, in just 15 years of life, left a profound and universal mark.

The story gathers a series of valuable testimonies, involving people close to Carlo for various reasons and able to reveal his different facets: his parents Antonia Salzano Acutis and Andrea Acutis; his grandmother Luana Pennino; the housekeeper Rajesh Mohur; childhood friends Mattia and Jacopo Pastorelli; his schoolteacher Elisa Tattanelli; Momcilo Jankovic, the doctor who cared for him during his final days; Costa Rican student Valeria Vargas Valverde, protagonist of the miracle linked to the canonization, and her mother Liliana; film and communication scholar Monsignor Dario Edoardo Viganò, vice chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences; the postulator, journalist and scholar of spirituality and mystical authors Nicola Gori; Monsignor Poma, Carlo’s parish priest and confidant; Father Fábio Vieira, spiritual director of the association of devotees of Saint Carlo Acutis in Brazil and priest of the Diocese of Corumbá (Mato Grosso do Sul), one of the main promoters of devotion to Carlo in Brazil; sociologist and expert in childhood and digital technologies Stéphane Chaudron; Father Maurizio Corbetta, parish priest of Santa Maria Segreta in Milan, the church where Carlo lived his faith experience. The film’s original music was entrusted to pianist and composer Remo Anzovino, now in his twelfth collaboration with Nexo Studios. The soundtrack will be released under the Nexo Studios Soundtracks label and distributed exclusively by Universal Music Italy.

By focusing on everything that precedes the icon—the everyday life, family relationships, sense of humor, and the astonishing normality of a boy who lived his time with radical authenticity—Luca Salmaso’s film reveals a figure able to fully inhabit his own era, between video games, programming, and the Internet, yet choosing a radical spiritual path oriented toward the essential and the invisible. The story of the Young Saint thus unfolds as a journey through Carlo’s life up to his canonization, reflecting a continuous dialogue between earthly life and the transcendent. This work is part of a living network of connections that continues to grow around his figure, from pilgrimages to Assisi to digital communities worldwide, showing how Carlo’s message transcends religious boundaries to speak to different generations and distant cultures, touching places from his parish in Milan to Cascia, La Verna, Lanciano, Fatima, Rome, and all the countries where his words have found resonance and welcome: places that are not mere backdrops, but narrative tools to enter his spiritual world.

‘CARLO ACUTIS. THE YOUNG SAINT’ represents an open dialogue between faith, technology, and the search for meaning, addressing universal themes such as identity, loneliness, materialism, and hope. The result is a film-event that seeks to combine emotional depth and a contemporary perspective, narrating a possible and accessible sanctity, capable of engaging with the present and proposing a spiritual legacy that continues to live in the world.

‘CARLO ACUTIS. THE YOUNG SAINT’ is produced by Officina della Comunicazione, Nexo Studios, and OUR FILMS, A Mediawan Company, with the sponsorship of the Friends of Carlo Acutis Association and in collaboration with the Cariplo Foundation. ‘The Mysteries of Faith by Nexo Studios’ is distributed in Italy in collaboration with media partners Avvenire, Famiglia Cristiana, Gruppo Editoriale San Paolo, and with RTL 102.5 as the Official Radio.

‘The Mysteries of Faith by Nexo Studios’ was conceived as an open, reflective, and exploratory project: it is a cinematic space designed for meditation, listening, experimentation, and thought, to engage with different cultural sensitivities and religious traditions, to dialogue, learn, and question the meaning of life. The series invites us to place the search for meaning at the center of our cinematic experience, suggesting new rhythms and paths for thought, relationships, and inner exploration. Thus, cinema once again becomes the preferred place for meeting: a space to experience stories and themes in a concentrated and meditative way, protected from daily noise and distractions, where silence and attention allow us to deeply enter the stories and topics addressed. It is not about watching a film alone at home, but about sharing the experience with others, whether known or strangers, establishing a physical and real encounter. In this context, cinema becomes a collective practice of reflection and emotion, able to explore one of the most crucial themes of human life: faith.

To accompany the public beyond the cinema, the digital project ‘The Mysteries of Faith’ has been created: a dedicated website; a WhatsApp channel for all project updates; a newsletter with insights, reflections, and ideas on the great themes of faith and existence; and new official social channels on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, designed as spaces for dialogue, exchange, and sharing for a community in constant search for meaning.