Communications agency KesselsKramer, which launched Ben in 1999, has developed a new campaign for Ben vrij, the prepaid product of this telecom provider.

The agency came up with the name Ben vrij and let two young filmmakers a total of 11
Directing TV commercials. Alain Friedrichs and Sarah Carlier were given only one instruction: show people on the phone in a distinctive way who feel completely free. The only constraint: it has to fit within 10 seconds.

Alain Friedrichs (29) is a third-year student at the Netherlands Film and Television Academy in Amsterdam. In 2006, he won the Student Award at the Netherlands Film Festival with his short film 'Façade'. During his studies, he made the trailer for the Cinestud festival, among other things. Alain directed 'footballer in living room', 'girl in bath' and 'grandma in square' for Ben. Alain on making the films: 'For a ten-second commercial, absolute simplicity is necessary. There is only time to sketch a situation. You can then relatively easily evoke a sense of freedom with atmospheric images and fine music, but we deliberately did not want to work abstractly. As a result, we looked for situations where no dramatic arc is needed to understand the comedic slant with a wink at freedom. The cliché proves itself once again: less is more.

Sarah Carlier (28) is a photographer from Izegem in Belgium. She lives in The Hague, where she studied photographic design at the Royal Academy of Visual Arts. As a photographer, she has worked for cultural institutions and magazines and exhibited her own work in Rotterdam, Brussels, and Leuven, among other places. Her film experience leads back to her own projects, in which she pushes the boundaries of the medium of photography. Her films are characterized by a constant frame where the image changes only due to the movement of the characters. In addition, Sarah is currently completing a photo/film project in Romania. For Ben, she directed 'man in hotel', 'line-dance group', 'living statue', and 'grandpa on the street'. Sarah: 'I wanted the commercials for Ben to be as pure and realistic as possible, but combined with fantasy and humor. By sticking to this, I try to take the viewer into a recognizable reality and a somewhat bizarre world of imagination.'

Starting September 20, the TV commercials will be shown in a series of 3 within a single commercial break. Click here for an overview of all the videos and here for the work of Sarah Carlier.

Credits
Agency: KesselsKramer
Concept: Niek Eijsbouts and Gijs van den Berg
Director: Alain Friedrichs and Sarah Carlier

To download a selection of the commercials click here (20 MB):
http://www.kesselskramer.com/press/site-media/user-uploads/ben-commercials.zip



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