After years of war, peace has returned to Brazzaville and with it has re-emerged a group of extraordinary men: the Sapeurs, the Society of Elegant Persons of the Congo. They are working class everymen: taxi drivers, factory workers, cane cutters. However, they refuse to let their circumstances define them. Instead, they wear incredible suits and live by a simple philosophy: to defy circumstance and live with Joie de Vivre.
Filming the real Sapeurs, the ad celebrates these men who are “made of more”. While their incredible suits provide a rich visual tapestry, they merely reveal the strength of their character, and it is these inner qualities that prove a universal truth: all of us have a choice in life, we can let circumstance define us, or we can defy it.
These beacons of the human spirit remind us that we can always choose who we are.
Creative Execution
Congo-Brazzaville is a war torn African country emerging from a decades long civil war, so it is with some nervousness when your casting brief reads “street casting in the Congo”. But that was the challenge we faced with the Sapeurs. When we decided to use real Sapeurs instead of actors there was an immediate reaction. There is no production infrastructure on the ground, communication is difficult, we would have to go there ourselves, but then experts told us we would have a 48 hour window in Brazzaville before we would have to leave. And if we found them, we were told that many of the Sapeurs would not have passports and wouldn’t be able to travel.
But we went to Brazzaville, and began the process of street casting to track down the Sapeurs who would become the stars of the new UK & Ireland Guinness commercial.
None of the Sapeurs we found could speak English (they speak French Congolese), none of them (except one) had been outside the country, and none of them had ever been on a film set, behind the camera, taking direction and being asked to act, and perform choreographed moves over and over again. But all of the Sapeurs we found had one thing: an irrepressible spirit, which lit up the screen. These non-actors, non English Speakers being barked at by Directors, Assistant Directors, Art Directors, DOPs, Hair and Make-up found a way to let their dignity and individual personalities shine through.