Russians, Asians, Explosions & Cats: A Russian hitman gets challenged by an unusual enemy.
Lots of independent artist cringe when they hear the word advertisement, but Gabriel Borgetto, a 3rd year directing student at Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg in Germany, took the ad concept and turned it into a fun and explosive storyline about Russians, Asians, explosions and cats. The team knows quite a bit about branded films, as they are the ones who brought us the controversial and viral short ‘Studies on Hysteria‘. For ‘Sneeze Freeze’ they took a different and more direct brand approach, while actually having all the fun and inventing a product for this parody film.
The aim was to combine an exciting gangster story with a rather unimpressive and small product to create a funny story with an ending you don’t see coming. I created the protagonist Mad Dog, a professional Russian hitman that has but one Achilles’ heel: his cat allergy. Since all anti-allergy products I researched online were not sexy at all, I decided to come up with my own product: Sneeze Freeze – the allergy killer.
Gabriel convinces us with a staggering cinematography and blockbuster action, and up until the very end we are in belief of being in a deep and intense drug lord Rambo film until the sneeze happens. In essence, Gabriel shows us that there is fun to be made with advertisements, and although it will never please everyone, these type of films allow directors to explore their creativity while getting a worth pay and doing what they love (even though Sneeze Freeze is not an actual ad).
