Short Film 'Plus D'amour' Explores Heartbreak & The Healing Power Of Friendship

Back in the day, product strategy and shooting commercials existed as two separate entities within the advertising pipeline. Fast forward to 2010, shrunken marketing budgets and evolving visual sensibilities resulted in a conflation of ad agencies with production companies. The agency in-house production model is now highly valued for long-term brand building, cost-effectivity and a streamlined workflow. Riding the coattails of this symbiosis, a homegrown content studio called By The Gram or BTG is collaborating with remote teams stationed in 15 cities across the world, to engineer an unrivalled portfolio of fashion films and atypical editorial campaigns. Recently, their first short film, Plus D'amour, directed by Zafar Mehdi, has elevated their relevance in a narrative-driven ecosystem where companies are looking to push out digital assets that speak to the cultural zeitgeist as opposed to anachronistic one-jingle wonders of yore. Founded by three women who describe themselves as "thinkers, designers and movie buffs" — Eman Batliwalla, Aaliya Amrin and Danisha Kohli — the poignant storytelling from BTG dares to be light years ahead of the curve.

Gilded with an alloy of cross-cultural creators and a striking colour palette that pays homage to Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire (or Wes Anderson's Moonrise Kingdom), the short film begins with two lovers chain-smoking on a wrought iron balcony while the 1959 You're Gonna Miss Me by Connie Francis leads us into a deceptively moonstruck first act. Right off the bat, you can tell that the young couple is not going to last long.

Cutting back and forth between piggy back rides in a palatial studio apartment, under the glorious vaulted ceiling, to wine-soused heroine trying not to drown alone in her bath tub; here's a motif we have seen all too often in romantic tragedies. The pain does not fester long because the heartbroken girl's best friend Tugba is simply a phone call away. Slapping on lipstick like warpaint and a polka dot sundress, our protagonist takes a joyride through the poetic labyrinths of Bari, a port city in southern Italy bespeckled with 19th century Puglian Romanesque architecture.

Though she wanders listlessly with a gelato cone in hand, stopping at graffiti-riddled street corners and lighting up by the promenade, we can sense that she feels vulnerable under the new-found confidence. Her wounds begin to heal faster when Tugba shows up, surprising her with an impromptu staycation, ready to hold her hand and run through meadows at twilight. An enduring avowal of the healing power that friendship carries, Plus D'amour tackles self-realisation, inner strength and the importance of acknowledging sorrow in order to conquer it meaningfully.

Plus D’amour has won awards at the UK Fashion Film Festival, Los Angeles Film Awards and been selected at the Seattle International Fashion Film to name a few.

You can learn more about BTG here.

You can watch the film's trailer below.

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