The Disasters and Emergency Committee (DEC) is showing how vital public donations have been in helping survivors of the Turkey-Syria earthquake which took place one year ago today.
Created by independent agency Don’t Panic, the campaign will be spearheaded by a 90-second hero film shot from inside a locker in a Syrian hospital, laying bare the human cost of the disaster.
Running across TV and cinema, the Eugen Merher-directed effort highlights how £150 million-worth of donations from the UK public helped survivors of the quake, which killed an estimated 60,000 people.
“One of the most powerful themes of our member charities’ response to this disaster was how we saw Syrian and Turkish aid workers helping their communities and people, whilst going through huge trauma themselves. The Locker tells this side of the story in a subtle, real and authentic way. Whilst working to save lives, Lena’s character loses her husband, but she doesn’t give up helping others. Throughout, her colleagues also give her the strength and support to carry on while donations from the UK are also helping her continue her work,” DEC CEO, Saleh Saeed said.
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“I’m hugely proud of the work we’ve been able to support in both Turkey and Syria over the last year. We’ve provided healthcare and supported hospitals like the one in this film, but also provided food, clean water, toilets, shelter and much more besides. In the first six months after the disaster, we helped well over a million people, and we’re continuing to help many more on the long road to recovery.”
Filmed in Arabic with English subtitles, the film draws attention to the vital work carried out by the DEC, which operates as an umbrella organisation for 15 separate UK aid charities – providing food, water, sanitation and shelter to disaster zones.
Don’t Panic creative partner, Rick Dodds added: “The idea of using a locker to tell the story meant that we had a very small and unforgiving canvas on which to work. The performance from our lead, Lyna Dubarry, had to be millimetre perfect throughout as there were no cut aways or any alternative angles to utilise.
“Her range of performance combined with the intimacy of the camera being in her locker, delivers a powerful emotional arc. Equally challenging was the small amount of space the background had in shot, and the huge amount of storytelling it had to do. We actually shot the whole film in chronological order, so we could ensure that the narrative beats would land in camera.”
