For the fourth opus in its advertising saga – five times awarded at Cannes and the Effie Grand Prix in France and Europe – Intermarché, the grocery chain, decided to embrace and pay tribute to the response to this historic health situation. This film is not about Santa Claus, but rather about those who have sacrificed everything to take care of others: health workers, the sometimes forgotten heroes of the year 2020. The brand is thus affirming its desire to be with the French people, as close as possible to their lives, by departing from the traditional Christmas commercials films that blossom every year.
Accompanied by its Romance agency and director Katia Lewkowicz, Intermarché takes 3 minutes to pay tribute to them in a moving film that follows a nurse at the hospital and a family (a mother and her teenage son) waiting for the father’s recovery. This film, in which Intermarché has elegantly set itself back, focuses on the characters’ lives in a to-and-fro of worry, hope and tenderness. Never dramatic. Once again it doesn’t look like advertising, but more like a cinematic short film. As in previous films, the soundtrack plays a decisive role. After Marcel Mouloudji, Henri Salvador and Benjamin Biolay, come the band ‘Terrenoire’ that accompanies the exceptional editing. Far from the French chanson standards that launched the Intermarché saga, the song “Jusqu’à mon dernier souffle” plunges us into a contemporary and restrained emotion. On the front line during the confinement, Intermarché has multiplied solidarity actions, for the health workers in particular: priority at checkouts and drives, distribution of meals and even chocolates… The film thus becomes an echo of the solidarity and generosity of the French who, this spring again, applauded the caregivers every evening at 8 pm. At a time when the country is experiencing the recurrence of this health crisis, when the weariness of confinement seems to have set in, it reminds us that this time of the year is the best to remember their unconditional commitment and to say thank you once again.
