Brief Explanation

We observed a strange phenomenon. The world becomes a much better place in the three months leading up to the Cannes Lions festival every year. There's a surge in the number of creative ideas that selflessly impact the lives of those in need. People are fed, clothed, educated and their voices heard. But many of these ideas are abruptly discontinued in June, right after the awards are given out. This documentary film explores the views of the beneficiaries of these ideas and asks the all-important question: Why can't ideas that do good for humankind live longer than the awards? Why can't more ideas impact lives in a more sustainable way? The film ends with a simple, yet brilliant solution to the above mentioned problem.

Creative Execution

The casting was key for the appeal of the final visual. We needed authentic slum kids from varying age groups relating their stories and middle aged and men who appeared to be from the labor class and spoke an authentic dialect. We conducted auditions across three different slums in Mumbai including Dharavi (Asia’s largest slum). For 10 days we kept shortlisting and retesting the cast from across the 3 slums. We also held a separate audition inviting theatre actors and models in Mumbai. If we were to use actors, they had to be completely fresh faces, as we didn’t want them to be identified because then the spot would lose its authenticity and appear fake. We chose all the kids from the various slums of Mumbai and the older cast from our shortlist of theatre actors. The documentary format helped us a little fumble or a mistake would make our spot more convincing. Nevertheless, the entire cast was rehearsed days in advance and only final tweaks to the performance were made on the location. This was also because we couldn’t spend too much time perfecting a performance since the constraints of production demanded that we shoot and scoot.