Capturing the imagination: Gin brand puts film-makers to the test

New York – At this year’s Tribeca Film Festival, gin brand Bombay Sapphire presented the Imagination Series 2014, a sequence of five short films based on the same script.

Screenings took place at Bombay Sapphire’s two-storey branded installation, the House of Imagination. Within the House of Imagination, which contained multiple bars and interactive film exhibits, the brand created The Blue Dahlia, a retro venue presumably inspired by the 1946 film noir of the same name. It served as a screening room for the five selected short films, which were drawn from a pool of more than 1,300 entries following a competition.

A hostess in period costume took guests’ reservations and escorted them to their seats, where they were served five miniature Bombay Sapphire cocktails designed to be paired with each film, each in a different glass. Despite the constraint of an identical script, the films ranged widely in content, from a futuristic journey through space to a married couple taken hostage to a romantic comedy inspired by speed dating.

The installation incorporated multi-sensory components and elements of immersive theatre. Read about both in our Futuretainment macrotrend.