2015 Winners & Shortlists

Brief Explanation

57357 Children’s Cancer Hospital in Egypt is a non-profit organisation that depends entirely on donations to keep it going. With Egypt’s recent economic and socio-political problems and the overused emotional abuse of charities on TV, the public grew a very negative perception towards all charity ads in general, and 57357’s communication in specific. Using the Medium of a children’s play, this ad urges people not to abandon hope and stay optimistic. We see several vignettes and situations acted on stage where the main characters never lose hope, while the song sings “don’t lose hope”. Among the main elements seen are daily frustrations of Egyptians like traffic, lack of income or losing of a favourite sports team. The ad builds up showing a surgeon successfully saving a patient’s life and a military triumph. We finally reveal that all the children telling you not to abandon hope, are really Cancer patients in the Hospital. We end up saying that this is a message of Hope, from those who refuse to lose Hope. The play along with the song has become part of the regular entertainment routine for kids at the hospital and they perform it on the hospital's stage.

Creative Execution

The idea of the film is to have cancer patients acting the play and sending their message to the adults. The cast included a lot of children being treated at the Hospital for cancer, of course we couldn't get the entire cast from the hospital due to health reasons and the kids couldn't stay for the entire shoot. But we managed to cast the leading roles in every scene and key emotional moments with real cancer patients from the hospital and gave them as much camera time as possible. The kids were carefully selected and auditioned by the production team along with the director in the hospital, and were encouraged to enjoy the process as much as they can. Some of the kids took the process too serious they started campaigning to be selected for the spot.