In a difficult but important watch, this film puts the plight of animals in distress to the fore through a series of desperate pleas. The goal was to take a heavy topic and give it power through a sleek visual treatment and an emotion-filled film that led to action being taken by viewers and people in power. This film follows the 30 Millions d'Amis charity's tradition of elaborating compelling advertising campaigns on top of acting every day to save animals beyond its shelters, also through its legal and political commitments.

BRIEF

Today, French households are home to more than sixty million pets: cats, dogs, rabbits, NACs, etc. but 60,000 animals are still abandoned every year.

The mission of the 30 Millions d'Amis Foundation is to raise awareness of the brutality of abandonment and animal abuse in all its forms.

69% of French people believe that animals are poorly defended by politicians. 64% of those polled are in favor of ending the sale of pets through classified ads and in pet stores to fight against abandonment and 77% want to ban hunting with hounds.

Not all animals abandoned by their owners can be taken into a shelter. Many of them are left to fend for themselves in the wild where they die of exhaustion and hunger. Since January 2015, animals are recognized as living beings with sentience by the French Civil Code. Abandoning an animal is a crime that is punishable by two years of imprisonment and a 30,000€ fine.

The 30 Millions d’Amis Foundation has been fighting for more than 20 years to take  action and raise awareness to animal abuse in all its form, most especially in the media landscape through powerful advertising campaigns. This campaign is a response to animal abuse in our indifferent society from a charity that is the equivalent of PETA in its local market.

SOLUTION

For this campaign, the Foundation has chosen to highlight general animal causes, going beyond the sole issue of abandonment, a strategic turning point that also corresponds to public debate knowing the film aimed to be broadcasted a few months before the French presidential elections. Indeed, the public debate and public opinion is becoming increasingly aware of the fate of many animals, making this issue a real electoral challenge.

The film features domestic and wild animals in appalling situations: a dog abandoned by its master, a wounded deer hunted by hunters, a bull mutilated after a bullfight, a monkey used in a laboratory, or a bear exploited by a circus... In turn, the animals cry out in despair, but man chooses to remain unmoved by this distress.

"Each animal stands out by the deep distress they express. Their call metaphorically unites all animal causes in a common song," explains the director.

"The shocking images that some charities broadcast are very useful and allow us to denounce horrible behaviors, but they are so violent that not everyone can bear to watch them," explains the director.

The idea here was to echo these videos, which often go viral because they are shocking, by showing a multitude of real acts of abuse that we can no longer close our eyes to. The aesthetic choice doesn't take anything away from the harshness of the subject, on the contrary, it allows to provide a unique sensory experience where hearing and sight are highly exploited, shedding light to the cruelty that these defenseless beings go through.

Taking the animals' point of view and humanizing their pain immediately allows to immediately identify the charity renowned for such campaigns and to grab the viewers attention.

Describe the Execution* (150 words)  (Implementation, Timeline, Placement, Scale,...)

The film affects, not by the immediate violence of the images, but by what they suggest. And the impact is all the stronger. "I wanted to give the point of view of the victim, of the animal which paradoxically was never put forward until now", explains the director.

Shot in Kiev, Ukraine, the film features real animals - no computer-generated images here - who face fear, injury and death and call for help. Of course everything was shot with the utmost respect for animals, some of which were actually indeed saved from getting slaughtered.

The film was broadcasted in a 90 seconds version and in a 2mn36 version in digital and notably on social networks with the intent of being shared and commented. It helped instill public debate a few months before the French presidential elections and had the objective of making it a real electoral challenge.