A weekly highlight from the world of branded film —
UCCA Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing collaborated with Vogue China to produce a short film with mega-idol Cai Xukun promoting the summer’s blockbuster exhibit, Picasso – Birth of a Genius. Cai, a 21-year-old singer-actor with an enormous, young fan base, is a goodwill ambassador for the UCCA and recorded an audio guide to the show. He also appears in a related fashion spread in the September issue of Vogue China.
The film imagines Picasso’s widow Jacqueline Roque and his friend Ramon Pichot as invisible ghosts awaiting the arrival of a “Pablo fan,” discussing some of the pieces featured in the exhibit as Cai strolls through the UCCA’s galleries.
Within a day of the film’s release, social media posts with the hashtag “Cai Xukun approaches Picasso” (#蔡徐坤走近毕加索) were viewed more than 100 million times, although numbers like these are fairly normal for anything related to the idol. UCCA director Philip Tinari told Vogue that even if only a small portion of Cai’s fans were inspired to visit the show, the short film was a worthwhile effort.
