AICP imagines Van Gogh and Frida Kahlo surviving client feedback — Epica Film Grand Prix

In March 2024, the Association of Independent Commercial Producers (AICP) needed entries for its annual awards — the AICP Show, whose winners join the permanent film archive of New York's Museum of Modern Art. BBDO New York answered with 'Museum-Worthy,' a comedy that imagines Vincent van Gogh and Frida Kahlo working to order: account people in period costume tell Van Gogh the client found 'Starry Night' 'a little, um, dark,' and tell Kahlo that her 'Self Portrait with Monkey' is 'confrontational and distracting.'

The film was directed by Brian Billow of O Positive and shot in a single day on location in LA, with the premise played deadpan so the satire lands. A companion short, 'Focus Group,' has ordinary 19th-century viewers call the painting 'terrifying' ('Was it done by a child?'). The endline ties the joke to the ask: 'It's hard to make museum-worthy art. It's harder to make museum-worthy ads.'

It was, in the team's words, cathartic — a 'challenging few years in our industry' dramatized as comedy. The film became the AICP Awards' call-for-entries, and it spread through the industry without any media spend.

Within a month the film had over 1,000,000 social and online views with zero paid support, and total entries to the AICP Show exceeded the goal by 35% in a down year for award-show entries. 'Museum-Worthy' then won the Epica 2024 Film Grand Prix and a 2024 London International Awards Silver for Scripted Short Film — an awards show winning an award from another awards show.