Curious director Zia Mandviwalla shoots Fedex brand documentary campaign via BBDO Guerrero

Curious director Zia Mandviwalla has directed Fedex’s new documentary campaign for BBDO Guerrero.

The branded film introduces Birdie, a successful Hong Kong businessman, the owner of Hershey’s Caffettiera that distributes coffee machines and supplies throughout Asia, Hercules Coffee Lab training centre and Hazel & Hershey, the most well known specialty coffee shop in Hong Kong.

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The job given to Mandviwalla, though, was to find the interesting character behind the businessman for her branded film for Fedex. Fedex’ global documentary campaign depended on Mandviwalla making Birdie’s story inspirational to the owners of small and medium-sized businesses.

Characterisation is one of her most notable skills. Mandviwalla’s story, Night Shift, of an airport cleaner brought in the greater share of her seventeen international film awards and was selected to compete for the Palme D’Or at the 2012 Cannes International Film Festival against nine other international competitors.

David Guerrero, creative chairman of BBDO Guerrero had a lot riding of Mandviwalla’s ability to create beautifully observed, insightful films. Fedex has been one of his agency’s major clients for nearly a decade whose work had helped it become the first Philippine agency to be ranked in the Gunn Report’s top 50 and Philippines Agency of the Year by Campaign, Kidlat and 4As.

Says Guerrero: “Happy to work with Zia and Curious over an extended period on the documentary style film that aimed to reach small business and start ups in the region. She was able to build a real rapport with our subjects and, with a tight-knit and nimble team, we were able to get a lot done in a short space of time. I would also praise Curious’ production support as highly responsive and adaptable to the real-world pressures we encountered over the course of the production. I think both client and agency teams were very pleased with the outcome.”

Says Mandviwalla: “It is rare you get to work on a campaign like this where you have the chance to work with real people, get under their skin, get into their lives and find out what makes them tick.

“But getting into people’s lives means squeezing into tight spaces and we often had to shoot with just the cameraman and myself, getting into the backs of cars, squeezing into their kitchens and distracting their kids while we interviewed them. Nothing could have been more gratifying. We were so grateful for the generosity and understanding of the agency, who were so patient while we shot and gave us the trust and freedom to get some moments of real gold. Together we worked as a team to put the edits together, as all good documentary is crafted in the edit suite. Most of all we had a really trusting client who let us head out into the world and capture these snippets of everyday people’s lives. It was a unique, exceptional experience and I look forward to doing some more.”

Mandviwalla has also directed commercials with Curious for NZTA with Clemenger BBDO NZ, Google Android with R/GA, Vodafone with cummins&partners, Rebel Sport with Ogilvy & Mather NZ, NZ Pork with Ogilvy & Mather, NZBCF with Colenso, Sky with DDB and NZ Navy with Saatchi & Saatchi.

View her work here: http://www.curiousfilm.com/directors/zia-mandviwalla.

Agency: BBDO Guerrero Phillippines

Audio Post: Liquid Studios