PPS ‘Finding the Forgotten Graduate‘

Finding the Forgotten Graduate
Jotello Soga

Finding the Forgotten Graduate
C Louis Leipoldt

Find the Forgotten Graduate
William Soga

Finding the Forgotten Graduate (Intro Film)

Finding the Forgotten Graduate (Outro Film)

AWARDED
D&AD 2024 – View showcase
One Show 2024 – View showcase

ABOUT THE WORK
PPS ‘Finding the Forgotten Graduate’ – An insurer founded on the sharing of success:
PPS is an insurer unique in two ways – it caters exclusively to graduate professionals, and it is mutually structured with profits shared amongst its policy holders, hence its ethos: ‘ Success is better, shared’. The challenge was to imbue this mantra with deep emotional meaning for graduate professionals of colour, in order to connect them to an 80-year-old South African brand still tainted with the perception of a company of – and for – old, white men.

A country where black success was never shared:
South Africa is the most unequal country in the world (World Bank Report 2022 ). Institutionalised racism was a key driver, but the psychological impact of a history seemingly void of black intellectual contributions is also to blame. The assumption is there were none. The truth? This information was deliberately never shared.

A life insurance policy like no other:
And so three decades after democracy, as we probed the still hidden, fragmented origins of black academia in 19th century South Africa, we were driven by one question: What difference would the success of early black intellectuals have made to present-day society had it been amplified and shared at the time?

Our response turned into a 20-month collaboration between historians, actuaries and creatives. A quest to track down and resurrect the success of a pivotal, forgotten black life – the very first black South African to earn a degree – and pay this success forward into the future with the world’s only Posthumous Life Policy ™. How? With a pay-out to his metaphorical beneficiaries – present-day exceptional scholars – 106 years after death. All captured in an interactive, audio-led, circular documentary entitled Finding the Forgotten Graduate.

IDIDTHAT MEMBER CREDITS
Agency: (No Member Credits)
Illustrator: (No Member Credits)
Animation Company: Sinister Studios
Animator: Christian van der Walt
Programmer/Software Development: (No Member Credits)
Film Production Company: The Star Film Co
Film Director: Tebogo Malope
Editing Company: Left Post Production
Editor: Saki Bergh
Music Composer: Adam Howard
Sound Designer: Adam Howard, Paul Theodorou, Theo Potgieter
VFX Operator: Christian van der Walt
Recording Studio: Howard Audio