Haezer’s Minted WINS Cannes Lions Award

Wim Steytler, director of Haezer’s music video for Minted, won the Young Director (Silver) Award at the Cannes Lions Award Ceremony in France on Thursday.

Image: Screenshot

Cannes Lions is the world’s biggest celebration of creativity in communications. Benchmarking innovation in anything from mobile and billboards to design and branded content, it’s the home of the great ideas changing the ways brands interact with their customers. Their Awards champion the best work from the past year and the Festival’s inspirational learning programme points the way forward.

The video features the subject of Xenophobia which is still a huge problem in Johannesburg, especially in the buildings depicted in the video. Steytler chose to centre the story of the video on the oppression of the Somalian community in South Africa. Some South Africans feel threatened by Somalians economically and therefore target them in xenophobic attacks

“It’s a great honour for my work to get recognised on such a huge international platform. Music videos are a fantastic medium with which to push visual boundaries, exactly like I did with Haezer’s Minted music video, and I can’t wait to get the next project off the ground.” says Steytler.

“Wim had a very clear vision for the music video and managed to stylishly pull off a big and abstract idea. It was easy working with him and his producers because of this and their open mindedness and grace when it comes to the director/artist bridge. They were accommodating with any changes I wanted made and I think the final product marries the concept with the music beautifully.” – Haezer.