2023 Winner

CASE SUMMARY

In 2021, 85 million suspected pieces of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) were found online. In the past year, this problem has grown at an alarming rate of one film or image uploaded every two seconds.

The Canadian Centre for Child Protection is a leading voice in the fight against CSAM. Yet they have no global awareness.

So how does one small organization make people understand this
global problem? How do they make them grasp this unfathomable number
in order to shine a light on this unspoken epidemic and spur change? And how do they do it with no paid media budget?

Film fests bring titles together from all over the world, and are
celebrated with glitz, glamour and fanfare.

Yet, online, there are more videos and images of CSAM than all the world’s film festivals combined. And no one is talking about them.

The Unwanted Film Festival is the largest film festival hiding in plain sight: 85 million films, 195 countries, playing online. Everywhere.

They visualized the scale of this problem. Using artificial intelligence, they built an algorithm that generated 85 million film posters in real time. One every two seconds, representing a new piece of CSAM flooding the internet.

They fed 50 titles, 51 taglines, 90 images and 66 fonts into our engine. In turn, it used this data to build 85 million unique titles. And because this is a global issue, the algorithm translated the titles into the six languages most spoken around the world – English, French, Mandarin, Hindi, German and Spanish. What’s more, title point was inspired by real survivor stories.

They launched online and with a live, immersive experience on the doorstep of one of the largest festivals in the world: The Tribeca Film Festival in New York City.

Upon entering the experience, festival-goers were quickly surrounded by film posters via 3D projection mapping. Every two seconds, a new poster was generated and projected onto the walls and floor around them. Each representing the rate at which the Unwanted Film Festival grew last year.

To elicit response and drive action, cards in the form of movie tickets were handed out to visitors. Each featured a QR code that drove to a petition demanding action from the world’s governments and largest tech companies.

The Unwanted Film Festival stole Tribeca’s spotlight - and the conversation. One visitor said, “It’s riveting. It gets into your soul.”

Another added, “It’s powerful to see and it’s impossible to imagine
85 million of these being created.”

And a third lamented, “It’s disgusting, what happens all around the world.”

Celebrities, politicians, law enforcement and news outlets amplified our story.

The Unwanted Film Festival garnered website visits from 166 countries across the globe and over 50 million earned impressions and counting. Eighty-five million unique posters were created and we surpassed our petition signature goal by 92%.

Despite the Unwanted Film Festival’s impact, the fight against CSAM continues. As does their call to hold tech companies accountable.

Credits

Canadian Centre for Child Protection:
Lianna McDonald, Executive Director
Signy Arnason, Associate Director
Carly Peters, Writer, Editor & Communications Specialist
Avery Wolaniuk, Manager, Strategic & Public Relations

No Fixed Address
Alexis Bronstoph, Chief Creative Officer, NFA (TO & NFA USA)
Kelsey Horne, Chief Creative Officer, NFA (TO & NFA USA)
Rena Hula, Rena Hula VP, Group Creative Director
Andrew Rizzi, Associate Creative Director
Daniela Angelucci, Associate Creative Director
Feilin Fu, Senior Designer
Luciana Trespalacios, Graphic Designer
Valentina Gutierrez, Designer
Victoria Di Valerio, Creative Director, Design
Zach Klein, VP Strategy
Josie Daga, EVP, General Manager
Abby Tile, Account Supervisor
Darrin Patey, VP Creative Technology
Cherie O’Connor, VP, Production & Content
Erin Banting, Vice President of PR, NFA
Ollie McAteer, Director of Development, Mischief
Emma Bray, Director, PR, NFA

VFX/Colour - Production House - Fort York
VFX: Fort York
Creative Director: Mike Bishop

Experiential - XM - Street Attack
Brett Zaccardi, Founder & Head of Production

Editorial: School Editing
Editor: David Larocque

Music & Sound: Berkeley Inc.
Creative Director: Jared Kuemper