SHOTS Vol. 01

Be A Lifeline

CLIENT  Humanity Inclusion  AGENCY  Cossette  ECD  Antoine Becotte  COPYWRITER  Linda Dawe ART DIRECTOR  Stephane Gaulin  PRODUCTION  Mileinn PRODEXEC • Michel David  DIRECTOR • Olivier Staub
The Lifeline campaign was filmed and photographed entirely on location in two Burmese refugee camps and a nearby village on the Thai-Burmese border in October 2017.
The visual metaphor is so poetically clever, it touched me instantly. Portraying such drama with doodles in the hands of real people opens a channel straight to the viewer’s emotions, with great authenticity and simplicity. It is not just another generic war scene, another refugee camp, that could have been shot in Namibia or Hollywood.
We dove into the real situation and embraced it. We didn’t replicate, we shot real people in real camps; we experienced their daily reality.
My biggest revelation was this little boy named Siti Pong, the boy in the finale of the film. This little boy is missing a leg, three fingers, and still has an impressive appetite for life as well as a contagious smile. Seeing him play soccer with the other kids was for me the proof that hope never dies.