Unsteryotype Me (2019)
Director: Sophie Robinson
A unique experiment in marketing science conducted by academics Lasana Harris and Gorkan Ahmetoglu from UCL, as part of Unilever’s Unstereotype initiative, showed a “statistically significant 35% reduction in stereotypical thinking” and a “significant change in original thinking”, amongst those who took part. The film explored whether DNA analysis, aimed at giving participants a greater insight into their origins, coupled with a workshop on behavioural change, could help to broaden the way people see themselves and the world around them. In doing so, UCL hypothesised that participants would be more open to questioning how they might inadvertently stereotype people in advertising, giving them a fresh view of how to commission creative ideas that advance progressive, inclusive and unstereotypical portrayals of people.
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR
Director of so&so pictures Sophie Robinson has a strong reputation for telling impactful and powerful stories through the emotive characters that are at the core of her films. She specialises in working collaboratively with her subjects to create outstanding documentaries which provide a platform for a wide variety of previously unheard voices.
Her latest feature documentary, a Netflix Original ‘My Beautiful Broken Brain’ was executive produced by David Lynch and nominated for an Emmy as well as winning other documentary awards including the IDFA DOCU Award, The Ahftaz Festival Documentary Award, TRT and received a special mention from the Alliance of Women Film Journalists for best female director. Sophie is also behind award-winning films such as BBC2’s ‘Me, My Mouth and I’, the highly acclaimed ’Nicola Roberts and The Truth about Tanning’, ‘Your Life In Their Hands’, ‘Edge of Life’, 'What's Killing Our Bees?' and ‘Do You See What I See?’ as well as a variety of programmes for the BBC’s flagship science strand, Horizon.
Sophie has extensive experience of working with on-screen talent, be it through working with brands (Gucci, Skype, Balmain, Victoria Beckham, The Women’s Prize For Fiction) or from making music documentaries as varied as ‘Mumford & Sons: We Wrote This Yesterday’ to the anarchist punk story of Chumbawamba in ‘I Get Knocked Down’.