Movie Pirates Cast as Power-Crazed Office Tyrants in Hilarious Spot for South African Cinema Chain

South African cinema chain Ster-Kinekor is taking on film pirates with a spot that pitches movie mercenaries as office nerds with a major power complex.

Sitting aloft a throne of broken keyboards and miscellaneous IT debris, Ian rules the office like a fickle Roman emperor, dishing out dodgy .movs and mp4s to those who curry favour, cutting off supply to those who cross him. 

The creative from agency FoxP2 takes a smart approach to the tricky topic of piracy – rather than pass judgement on viewers, it positions the cinema as an empowering alternative to shoddy copies ad power-crazed pirates. Drawing attention to the experience of the cinema chain’s luxury auditoriums, the film urges fans to ‘Do Movies Right’.

The spot was directed by Grant De Sousa, whose comedy-horror short film It’s Complicated is dominating the festival circuit, and it was produced by The Shoot Film. The DoP was Michael Cleary, Kezia Eales was art director and stylist, while Nic Apostoli worked on the colour and Wilhelm Saayman was the editor. Post was overseen by The Upstairs Ludus. The spot came out of South African creative agency FoxP2, with ECDs Justin Gomes and Andrew Whitehouse. Michael Less-Rolfe was creative director and art director, and the copywriters were Mimi Cooper and Gavin Williams.