2019 Winners & Shortlists

Write a short summary of what happens in the film.

We follow the point-of-view of a construction worker. We are on a labor bus with other workers as we make our way home after a long day. We open our wallet and look longingly at a picture of our children. At that moment the bus we are in is involved in a gruesome accident. We are surrounded by chaos. The next moment, we gain consciousness. We are lying in the mangled wreck of the bus. Everything around us is silent. Then we notice a light approaching us. We realise it’s a curious onlooker with his mobile phone, filming the gruesome scene. The POV now flips to that of the onlooker. The viewer realizes that the man is filming the laborer slipping into unconsciousness again. Super: If it were your pain, would you share it? #PostWisely.

Cultural/Context information for the jury

Vehicle crashes are incredibly common in the UAE, and footage of accidents often emerge on social media, as it did at the beginning of 2018 after a horrendous pileup on the Dubai-Abu Dhabi highway. This made the topic of road accidents extremely topical in our conversation about responsible social media use. In addition, laborers are not always treated well, often seen as inferior. So beyond tackling the issue of people filming tragedies instead of taking steps to help, this film indirectly touches on the secondary social issue of labor abuse.

Tell the jury about the visual effects and summarise any relevant challenges or techniques.

We wanted our stories to be as impactful as possible, utterly visceral and completely real. So we opted for the least amount of post-production, by capturing every visual-effect on camera. We crashed busses and put several stunt men through some rigorous thrashings. We even hurled them out of the window of a moving bus. The sound design involved a multi-channel execution to deliver a fully immersive, captivating cinematic experience. To make the POV approach as realistic as possible, we developed a one-of-a-kind helmet rig capable of carrying a full-sized cinema camera.