How a sponsorship announcement became a film about two outsiders.
- Client
- Sunnamusk
- Type
- Documentary
- Length
- 1:48
The brand
Sunnamusk had become the first sponsor of a jockey. The question was how to tell people.
Sunnamusk is a London fragrance house that started in Whitechapel. Khadijah Mellah is a jockey who was born and raised in Peckham and began her racing career in 2019. Sunnamusk became her first sponsor.
The easy version is a photograph, a logo on the silks and a caption. That tells people a deal has been done. It does not tell them why these two belong together.
The idea
A rider from Peckham and a perfume house from Whitechapel turned out to have the same story.
Listening to Khadijah, we kept hearing the brand. She came into racing from a city background, a Muslim background and a minority background, and made her name quickly. Sunnamusk came into perfume from east London and did the same.
So the film makes no claim on the brand’s behalf. Khadijah tells her own story, and she is the one who says what the two have in common.
Two outsiders. One story.
The film
No voiceover. Her words, the stables at dusk, and race day in black and white.
We filmed at the yard as the light went, so everything in the present is warm and close. Race day is cut in black and white, which sets it apart as a record of what she has already done.
She speaks straight to camera throughout. The brand arrives through what she says about it.
“What I bring to horse racing and what Sunnamusk brings to the perfume industry is refreshing.”
