Saatchi &
Saatchi bought the highly-anticipated New Directors’ Showcase to
audiences in Asia for the first time at the Spikes Asia Festival of Creativity last night. The showcase reel, which premiered at the Cannes Lions
International Festival of Creativity in June, featured films specially
selected by Saatchi & Saatchi’s Worldwide Creative Board and highlights some
of the most exciting new global directorial talent.
“We’re excited to
be able to share the experience of the New Directors’ Showcase with the
creative community at Spikes Asia,” said Shannon Cullum, CEO of Saatchi &
Saatchi Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia. “The theme this year - #feelthereel
- was a great experiment in the power of emotion, film and technology.”
The New Directors’
Showcase has been an important part of the creative industry calendar since
1991 and can be seen as a barometer of film tastes throughout the world. This
year’s reel featured 19 films by 18 directors from all over the world, and
includes viral hits such as Tatia Pilieva's erotic 'First Kiss' and Alberto
Belli's spoof HBO trailer 'It's Not Porn'.
Andy Gulliman,
Saatchi & Saatchi Worldwide Film and Content Director and curator of the reel
said, “The main thing that we look for is the individual talent to deliver a
film that sustains our creative heritage. We want to be inspired by work that
could not be as easily done by somebody else. It is about the way the director
has executed the idea more than just the idea itself.”
The premiere at Cannes saw
the use of wearable technology to measure the audience’s emotional responses to
the films shown in real time. Not
surprisingly, films with humour or sex as the topic received the highest levels
of emotional arousal. Interestingly, however, there was a wide range in
reactions among the different audience members. For example, Emile Sornin’s
funny ‘Grab Her’ music video for Disclosure had some audience members getting
very agitated, while others remained completely unaffected.