After a long search for warehouses, farms, hotels and factories, we decided for three separate storylines. A seedy, forgotten restaurant somewhere in Asia, a sweaty call centre in Africa and a fishing boat in Eastern Europe, each one of them having their own strengths.
The restaurant was the most symbolic and followed the lyrics of the song the most. A waitress cleaning up after a big feast. Each frame there tells the Cinderella story straight away. The restaurant is located inside a typically big Soviet culture centre, the seemingly exotic Asian architectural style is all fake.
The call centre felt more contemporary, reflecting the fact that many people are blue collar workers even though their shirts are white. The screens also helped to make the concept clearer. We found this room inside of the National Library, a location that turned into a meme over the time with film crews coming and going every single day. I imagined some of these grand spaces might work for the end of the video but it felt too music-videoish and dishonest. Stromae has been away for 7 long years and the idea to have him appear as an annoying pop-up banner on a computer screen seemed interesting.
The last location was meant to be a heavy, industrial space but those places very often feel heavy and depressing with very little poetry. In the end we rented two old tugboats from the 1970's and sailed down Dnepr for a couple of hours. The guys playing cards are boat captains. This scene was also our ticket to show some non-urban environment and get some sunlight into the story.
I want thank amazing @natalie_maxovska for turning bringing the locations to life so well.