Breaking The Silence - Escaping Imprisonment, Surviving Interrogation, Hiding from Gestapo

By VMLY&R - Prague

For Post Bellum Brand National History Archive

Winner in category Advertising

In subcategory Film

WPPED Cream
WPPED Cream
WPPED Cream
Project Description
The NGO National History Archive, administrator to the largest public database of historical witness’s stories in Europe is lacking funds to gather more stories from witnesses. Their time is very naturally running out, since the people they intend to interview are bound to sooner or later die of old age. We needed to tell a story about some of these historical witnesses, their struggles and showcase how important it is that these people are heard. That they speak up.
Many times, Czech veterans, dissidents, political prisoners and others in opposition to the ruling Communist regime found themselves in situations where only staying silent could save their lives. With our campaign we are saying that now we need them to do the opposite – speak up so that their stories can be preserved for future generations.
The campaign consists of 3 authentic stories from 3 different decades of the 20th century showing, why it is important that especially people who’ve been through such horrific experiences need to be heard. Why their experience needs to be preserved – that it never has to be relived by the future generations.
Agency Solution
We looked into National History Archive’s database and dug for 3 distinct stories from different periods with the real witnesses still alive and able to talk about their experience. We then created 3 TV spots, each talking about one witness.
The TVC campaign is based on a reconstruction of our heroes’ moments of silence.
In all three executions, both the image and the sound correspond to the way the heroes perceived the situation – distorted sounds, echoes, enhanced voices and noises, rapid cuts, etc. This kind of execution allows the viewers to put themselves in our main character‘s shoes and better understand what they had to face.
Please rotate your device
to portrait orientation