2019 Winners & Shortlists

Write a short summary of what happens in the film.

We follow the point-of-view of a housekeeper. We find ourselves looking in a mirror, while our employer screams at us from another room in the apartment. We are deeply depressed. Still in POV we walk out onto a balcony. Our employer bursts into the room hurling abusive words at us. Desperately we climb onto the railing of the balcony and see that we are several floors above ground. It’s dangerously high. Still our employer doesn’t back off. Instead she takes out her mobile phone and starts to film us, continuing to humiliate us. We panic and slip. Only now, the employer starts to panic, but she continues to film. As we fall to our death, the POV changes from us to the employer, and the viewer sees our lifeless body lying on the ground. We cut to a super: If it were your pain, would you share it? #PostWisely

Cultural/Context information for the jury

In the Middle East, service staff are not always treated well, often seen as inferior. Stories of labor abuse often surface on social media. So beyond tackling the issue of people filming tragedies instead of taking steps to help, this film indirectly touches on a secondary social issue.

Tell the jury about the casting process.

We wanted our story 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 shamelessly dropped our stunt double from a 15-storey building. The cast were carefully selected to invoke the emotion we wanted within our viewers. The maid was selected for her heartbreaking portrayal of a broken woman. The employer is technically the villain in our story, but it was crucial to select an actress that reflected the average person on the street. We wanted all viewers to relate to our villain, because she represents the people who capture inappropriate events without thinking. These are not bad people. They are merely unconscious about the impact of their behavior. 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.