BETC Paris, B-Reel Create ‘Names Not Numbers’ for Médecins du Monde

Each year, 300,000 women die from pregnancy-related complications or unsafe abortions. To bring this statistic to life, production company B-Reel conceived and created “Names Not Numbers” for ad agency BETC Paris and Médecins du Monde (Doctors of the World), “a new experiential installation and digital experience” giving names to the women in the faceless statistic.

On International Women’s Day, March 8th, on a public street in Paris’ 3rd distict, B-Reel and BETC Paris unveiled their “Machine of Death” — “an artfully constructed and coldly methodical device that, each minute, cursively prints the given name of an actual woman who has died in childbirth or during an unsafe abortion.” After the name is printed, onlookers have 60 seconds to claim the card before it is dropped into a bin and lost forever. The cards include details on methods to help put an end to this tragedy on their flip side, and recipients are urged to sign the card and send it to local politicians or UN Secretary Ban Ki-Moon.

“This machine is a factory of death,” says Florence Bellisson, creative director at BETC, in a statement. “We are forced to confront this tragedy, live. It’s difficult to imagine that even today a woman’s right to choose what happens with her own body is not universal. This machine will become a weapon of salvation if every name it produces lands on the desk of someone who holds the key to change.”

The harrowing “Names Not Numbers” experience was captured in a digital short film (featured above), shot by B-Reel “at Stockholm’s Independent Studios and on location in Paris on March 8th.” Visitors to the “Names Not Numbers” website are given a minute following the film’s conclusion to retrieve, sign and send out their card through social media, in a digital recreation of the original experience. Claim your card now, and stick around for credits after the jump. continued…

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