Campaign films & launch pieces
Broadcast spots, issue films and launch videos built around a clear strategic argument.
Issue-led creative and human development studio
We enter the issue.Find what is alive.Give it form.
Campaign films, candidate portraits, mobilisation series and message development for political and issue-led organisations across Europe.
Not content for content’s sake. The internet has enough of it.
00 / THE PREMISE
We do not stand beside the issue and film it. We enter it.
Before we write a script, we spend time with the people and the conflict at its centre: the conviction, tension, humour or lived experience the brief may have missed. That research becomes the film’s actual argument, not merely its opening scene.
01 / POLITICAL CAMPAIGNS
Candidates · movements · mobilisation
A good campaign film compresses an argument into something people can see themselves inside.Then it expands the movement by giving that feeling somewhere to go: a rally, a vote, a door to knock on.
We build candidate character, lived stakes and a clear call to action into the work.
2024 local elections · Brașov CountyCandidate portrait for Irineu Darău’s race for President of the Brașov County Council · television spots and platform-specific digital cutdownsCreative strategy · concept · production · direction · cinematography · editing
A list of admirable nouns is not yet a character.
Instead of listing the candidate’s values, we filmed how they actually show up: in a room, in a decision and in how he treats people.
2024 European Parliament election · RomaniaTelevision spots plus digital campaign films and cutdownsCreative strategy · concept · production · direction · cinematography · editing
Political anger need not be house-trained.
We built spots that gave real voter anger a clear target and somewhere to land, instead of smoothing it into something safer.
2020 Romanian parliamentary electionGOTV and voter-mobilisation film · commissioned by Nicu Ștefănuță MEPConcept · production · direction · cinematography · editing
People do care about politics.
Most people were not apathetic. They had rarely heard politics described in language that sounded like their own life. This film did.
2024 local elections · Sector 3, BucharestCouncil candidate film for Augustin Szocs · part of Lucian Judele’s mayoral and council campaign seriesCreative strategy · concept · production · direction · cinematography · editing
A target and a place to act.
We turned resident frustration into an organised, watchable case for turning out.
2024 local elections · Sector 4, BucharestTV anchor Roxana Ciuhulescu with Ionuț Stroe, candidate for Mayor of Sector 4Short-form political conversation · production · direction · editing
A campaign film can begin with somebody else’s curiosity.
Roxana brings Ionuț out of campaign mode and into a conversation about the person behind the candidacy.
The campaign-shaped question
Planning a campaign film?
Bring us the candidate, the argument or the problem that still refuses to become a story.
Start a campaign conversationSelected work
Public stakes. Private stakes. Actual people.
Each project below began as a policy, a border, a diagnosis, a vote or a conversation, and became a film about the person living inside it.
Băbiciu: La nimeni pe nimic
Documentary portrait of Băbiciu, a small Romanian village, following residents’ pride in a place most maps do not bother to name.
Small enough to miss on a map. Large enough to hold a whole world.
Inimă de Pașaport
Documentary following people navigating Romania’s passport and citizenship system, the paperwork behind headlines about migration and borders.
The border shows up in someone’s papers long before it shows up in the news.
Home care
Film following a local leader’s work on home-care policy for older people, built around what he actually does rather than a campaign message about it.
“Authentic” may be the most focus-grouped word in our industry.
Our job is not to make someone look authentic. It is to keep the camera from getting in the way, so character can reveal itself.
Romanian seafarers during COVID-19
Field documentary about Romanian seafarers stranded at sea during COVID-19 lockdowns, and the policy gap that stranded them.
Policy becomes real the moment you board the ship.
Political Gaming with Dragoș Pîslaru
A podcast episode with MEP Dragoș Pîslaru, built around a game of FIFA rather than another studio interview.
Sometimes the fastest route past the talking points is to give someone something else to do.
PEOPLE · BELONGING · ACTION
A campaign should let people see where they might stand.
Policy is abstract. The queue, the rent, the classroom and the dangerous crossing are not. Those lived stakes are what we build films around.
07 / DIALOGUE & CAPACITY
We design and facilitate dialogue programmes.
Structured conversations where participants are expected to leave having genuinely reconsidered something, not panels for show.
European Youth Summit
Documentation of the European Youth Summit.
Young delegates drafting policy recommendations live, not waiting for an invitation to have opinions.
Conference on the Future of Europe
Coverage of the Conference on the Future of Europe.
Our job was to open the process up to participants, not narrate it for them.
10 · A room, eventually
Visual opener for a participatory event, moving from cosmic scale to collective decision-making.We began with black holes and ended with a room deciding what comes next.
11 / FLASH, WHERE USEFUL
We know how to make something fast, funny and shareable.
We just do not stop there.
The joke still has to make an argument: expose a contradiction, make someone feel seen or open a door to something more serious.
We use it to reach the point faster, not to replace the point.
The algorithm is a landlord with terrible taste. We still have to get through the door.
12 / THE WORK BENEATH THE WORK
A few good clips are not a strategy.
Sometimes we make the work directly. Sometimes we work inside your team, building the formats and systems that let it continue without us.
The strongest engagements do both: one strong film to prove the approach, then the capacity to keep the work moving.What we can make with you
Candidate portraits & human stories
Character-led films that show how values appear in a person, not merely on a slogan sheet.
Mobilisation & social series
Short-form formats, cutdowns and recurring episodes designed for repetition without sameness.
Narrative, research & message development
Grounded research, strategic framing, scripts and message architecture for how people actually think and organise.
Workshops & creative capacity
Training and facilitation that help internal voices become confident, useful creators.
Embedded campaign support
Formats, workflows and coordination when one excellent film is not enough.
Enter the issue
Research, immersion and difficult questions. We often start by testing whether the brief describes the real problem.
Make the work
Film direction, strategy, writing, comedy, performance, music and editing, brought together rather than handled in silos.
Build the capacity
Workshops, formats and internal systems, so your team can keep the work going without us in the room.
13 / THE CREATIVE LEAD
Film Director & Creative Lead
Lead contrarian, where required.
Dorian Negrilă
Most people become slightly less themselves when a camera appears. Dorian’s job is to reverse the damage.
A film director, actor and stand-up comedian, he notices rhythm, hesitation, contradiction and the detail everyone else politely edited out.
His documentary Băbiciu won the Victor Iliu Prize for Documentary at CineMAiubit.
He also asks whether the approved idea is any good. Meetings have survived.
14 / PEOPLE WITH INCONVENIENTLY OVERLAPPING SKILLS
A director can see a great deal. Not everything.
Strategy, production, coaching, organisational psychology, visual design and music help the work survive beyond the edit.
Our disciplines overlap on purpose. Silos are excellent for grain.
Producer, Strategist & Integrator
Ioan Ioniță
Ioan is the scanner in the room. He ranges across political theory, movement-building, behavioural science and communication strategy, looking for what survives contact with reality. He turns research into usable choices, connects strategy to execution and takes on the stubborn gaps no job description has claimed.
Leadership Coach, Group Facilitator & Learning Designer
Ilinca Petrescu
Ilinca works where private fear meets public life. She helps people and groups speak honestly, build trust and recover the courage to act together. Drawing on coaching, group facilitation and Dare to Lead, she designs learning experiences that make braver rooms.
Organisational Psychologist, Therapist & Graphic Designer
Diana Pătrașcu
Diana is an organisational psychologist and graphic designer. She reads the pressures and contradictions beneath an org chart, then helps complex ideas become visible without flattening them.
Music Producer, Curator, Drummer & Lyricist
Cristi Nicoară
Cristi listens for the pulse before anyone calls it a soundtrack. He shapes rhythm, tension and emotional temperature, finding the sound that belongs to the work. Sometimes the edit needs a score. Sometimes it needs one beat exactly where the argument turns.FILM DIRECTION · STRATEGY · WRITING · COMEDY · PERFORMANCE · POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY · RESEARCH · COACHING · FACILITATION · MUSIC PRODUCTION · CURATION · EDITING · CAPACITY BUILDING ·
Start somewhere
Bring us the difficult one.
The issue, project or half-formed idea that refuses to become ordinary content. The easy, flashy one has already found an agency.
ioan.ionita@abouttime.mediaWe take on fewer projects because caring properly keeps interfering with scale.