The Saatchi & Saatchi NDS has already shown that it can produce first-class live events. This time, 25 NDS directors will show that they can produce first-class film events…
…to mark 25 years of the New Directors’ Showcase.
Michel Gondry ‘Drug Store’
Saatchi & Saatchi has invited 25 directors from their NDS alumni to be part of an experiment in film, which will make its debut in Cannes on Thursday June 25. And each one of the 25 directors chosen for the 25×25 film is being revealed, day by day, in the lead-up up to Cannes Lions.
Danny Kleinman ‘Camel’
This is the achievement that S&S will celebrate on June 25: In 1991, Cannes Lions invited Saatchi & Saatchi to host a seminar. The agency came up with the idea of a Showcase that would reflect the agency’s reputation for nurturing and developing new directing talent. The inaugural NDS was presented by the late Paul Arden, the ECD legend and author of “It’s Not How Good You Are, It’s How Good You Want to Be”. The first New Directors included filmmakers like David Cronenberg, Daniel Kleinman and Jake Scott, who are now called the greats of film. Saatchi & Saatchi was unperturbed by having set the bar so high at its beginning. Every year’s NDS has aimed to outdo its predecessors.
The Palais des Festivals has been taken over by flying robots (Quadrotors) which predated the rise of the drone. Professor Richard Dawkins was turned into a meme. Tony Kaye emerged from a coffin. David la Chappelle choreographed a team of street dancers. In 2010 Saatchi & Saatchi showed that “Nothing Is Impossible” by bringing Paul Arden bought back to life on stage virtually – as a hologram. And last year, audience members wore Studio XO’s revolutionary sensory wristbands and their emotional reactions to the NDS films became a film itself.
The 25th is intended to be a landmark, as well as a hallmark, event.
And this year, 2,300 Cannes Lions delegates will watch the work of what the Saatchi & Saatchi creative community believes to be some of the most exciting new names to watch in the field of directing.
Ivan Zacharias ‘Prague National Gallery’
Andy Gulliman, curator of the New Directors’ Showcase (NDS) and Saatchi & Saatchi’s worldwide director of film and content commented, “For the past decade I’ve been part of the team of Saatchi & Saatchi’s creative leaders. This group selects the annual NDS Showreel, and I have curated the Showreel for the past 2 years. Reflecting upon the wealth of directing talent in an archive that goes back to 1991, it’s an amazing visual library with contributions from directors such as Spike Jonze, Michel Gondry, Dawn Shadforth, Jake Scott, Daniel Wolfe and Ivan Zacharias, who now are firmly enlisted in the directing hall of fame. Their directorial styles were an influence then, and continue to be an influence now.”
[main image from Jonathan Glazer ‘Mad’]
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