Samolet. Epic annual report

A big new crowd of private investors had just bought in, and shareholders wanted results they could show off in business circles. Both needed a report they would actually send to friends. We had made Samolet’s video report for 2019, so this one had to be stronger, and good enough for the investor event, social media and the site.

2020 was terrible for many and the best year in Samolet’s history. A developer builds hundreds of walls a year; this time its team broke through them. Stunt performers playing the Samolet team smash wall after wall, and the year’s facts appear on the walls and the floor.

Everything runs backwards: the film opens on the heroes in the dust uncorking champagne, the cork flies back into the bottle, and time rewinds to the first wall.

We rewrote the dry report as a manifesto where every line carries a number. A wall of folders and paper folds into the letters IPO. A giant concrete thumbs-down, pulled on ropes, flips into a thumbs-up: NPS +25.

Directed by Vladimir Vaulin with Zagranitsa production, shot in two days, almost every effect on set rather than in CG.

The film ends on that question: would we go back in time and change something? It has passed 1.25 million views on Samolet’s YouTube channel, and its numbers are real: gross profit grew 54% in 2020.

“We came with the task of making an annual report with a wow effect, and we think it came out very ‘wow’.” — Marita Klinshans, Head of Coverage Media, Samolet

Just went public and your annual report still reads like a spreadsheet? Tell us about your task. More for Samolet: New dreams and Without adventures.