Mercher Family, Romania

SVP (the Saint Vincent de Paul Society) is an international charity working to support people facing poverty and hardship in communities around the world.

As part of SVP’s “Rise to the Challenge” fundraising drive, we were commissioned to document the charity’s work in Romania through one family’s story, showing supporters the real difference their donations make.

We brought our own crew out to Romania, with local SVP staff helping us translate, get around, and track down some genuinely remote filming locations. The Mercher family lived in a very rural part of the country, and Ionut was thrilled to see a film crew turn up – full of questions about the cameras and how everything worked. Once the cameras were rolling, he explained how a cow donated by SVP had given his parents an income stream that let him carry on with his studies. We also spoke to other people in the community to build out the wider picture, shooting on ARRI Alexa with a local drone operator capturing the landscape around them.

The film was shown at SVP fundraising events, as well as running across their social media and website.