Café Joyeux's '47': a stop-motion first-job story made with its community

Café Joyeux is a family of café-restaurants that hires and trains people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, with 18 locations across Europe and its first US shop opening in Manhattan in 2024. Health agency Klick Health was asked to advertise the chain, and its creative problem was a delicate one: how do you promote an employer of people with disabilities without reducing its staff to an object of pity or inspiration?

Klick's answer was a short film called '47', named after the true story of a Café Joyeux employee with Down syndrome who did not get his first job until he was 47. The film follows Robert, a boy rejected by others as a child, on a nautical odyssey through choppy seas of rejection and prejudice until, at 47, he finds acceptance and purpose at Café Joyeux — a place that embraces his extraordinary abilities.

The film was created not just for the Down syndrome community but by it. Hero designer Bruno Jacob worked with his daughter Luna, who has Down syndrome; pianist Sujeet Desai and sound designer José Omar Davila, both born with Down syndrome, re-recorded FUN's 'Carry On' and built the soundscape with Canja Audio Culture. Zombie Studio handcrafted the stop-motion world with some 130 artists, making 11 versions of Robert from ages five to 47 and eight miniature sets full of tiny props.

The yellow scarf that guides Robert through the story doubles as Café Joyeux's brand colour and the encouragement of his mother, making the brand itself part of the emotional arc. Klick said the film lifted job applications, brand recognition and in-store traffic, and the work swept awards season: a Grand Clio in Film Craft and five Gold Clios at Clio Health 2024, a Silver Film Lion and three further awards at Cannes, and the Grand Prix in Health & Wellness Craft at the London International Awards.