2016 Winners & Shortlists

The Campaign

Audi supports the dreams of a talented boy to become a professional footballer, by delivering, building, and lighting up a football pitch for him. Our protagonist, Zakaria is a young boy who lives in the small village of Balad Sayt, Oman. It’s a remote village surrounded by majestic mountains. He has a big dream: to become a professional footballer. Through interviews done with Zakaria, his father and an old neighbour – as well as the footage captured, we learn that Zakaria faces a big obstacle. Living so far away from everything, there isn’t proper infrastructure for him to train. Audi decides to support his dreams. A total of 22 Audi Q7 travel to the mountainous village. Even though the roads are rough and dangerous, Audi persists in their mission. In the end, we deliver, build and light up a football pitch. It shows Audi's commitment to progress, under any condition.

Creative Execution

The remoteness of the mountainous village posed the biggest challenge. There were no paved roads to the location. Only 4X4s were capable of making the journey. During the five-week production, we covered over 8,000km, travelling from the north of Oman down to the Ash Sharqiyah region. Four weeks were spent just to scout for our protagonist. All the technical equipment arrived from Dubai. Even with all the pre-applied permits, getting them pass border control was challenging and time-consuming. The production crew slept on the ground in one of the houses in the village. The hotel was 9km away. Because of the rugged road conditions, to cover that distance would take one hour. The construction of the football pitch took two weeks. It was almost impossible to find a company to build it. We transported over 1,250 sq m of synthetic grass up the mountain. The film was shot under natural lighting. Since the village was situated in a valley surrounded by mountains, we had only six hours of shooting time a day. Aerial shots were challenging. Electromagnetic disturbances from the massive presence of iron in mountains caused the drone operator to lose control of his drone several times.