Justino, a night guard in a mannequin factory, spends his nights by himself doing his job but not feeling lonely, because the mannequins make him company. One night like any other, he decides to interact with his unknown peers of the the day time, so he starts to leave fun and loving messages helped by the mannequins. Meanwhile, their co workers make the traditional list that every company do during Christmas in Spain, to play the Christmas Lottery all together. However, Justino is too busy preparing his surprises that doesn’t realize the presence of the list. When his workmates win “El Gordo” (Spanish Great Prize), Justino discovers that he was never alone after all.

The Spanish Christmas lottery campaign is one of the most anticipated advertising campaigns of the year in Spain. Our National Lottery brand has a history of 250 years, and the buying and sharing of numbers amongst family, friends, workmates colleagues etc. is a huge Xmas tradition. Since every number is divided into tenths, if they win, they all win together.

We open with an alarm clock ringing. It’s 10PM.

Now we see different close ups of someone getting dressed. He is putting a guard uniform on. He adjusts his belt and when he finally puts on his jacket, we zoom in on his name tag, where we read “JUSTINO”.

He leaves his small studio and gets into a bus. It’s nighttime, and the guy sitting next to him is sleeping. He even uses Justino’s shoulder as a pillow. Justino looks at him, surprised.

The bus gets to an old building: Justino’s workplace. He clocks in and then gets on an old elevator. We discover that he is a security guard working the night shift. He arrives to his small office, where we see different security screens turned on, and gets his small radio. During the whole film we will be listening to the song “Nuvole Bianchi”, by Ludovico Einaudi.

Justino patrols around the place, goes up and down, left and right. We sense a great loneliness. Justino plays with his flashlight while he rounds the factory. We can see he is a happy man; he is alone, but loves his job.

Then we see human figures on the shadows looking at him. It looks like Justino is being watched while he works. But suddenly Justino notices them and turns the lights on. Then we discover those human shapes were actually mannequins. Justino works in a mannequin factory. He looks at them with a friendly smile and turns the lights off.

We are now outside of the building. Through a window, we see Justino going back to his booth. The building looks like an old tale one: it is magical, pretty but rusty. Over the building we see a huge signal where we read “MANNEQUIN FACTORY ST. PILAR”.

The inside of the factory is a huge two-storey open space. At the bottom there is the assembly line and the warehouse, where they keep the mannequins. In the top floor we can see a workspace with a common area, some meeting rooms, cubicles, a couple of offices and Justino’s booth; a little glass booth, with some security screens.

During the night, the factory is Justino’s. He goes around as he pleases. He noses around, but in a very naïve way, just trying to know their workmates better and trying to be up to date with the factory life. Walking around, a board where people hang things up gets his attention. There, we see a photograph. A selfie that all the employees of the factory took together. Justino looks at it with sad eyes. He wishes that he could be there with everybody, but suddenly his face expression changes dramatically. He just had an idea and he smiles with sparky eyes. Then he starts walking around very fast, getting mannequins from the warehouse. Then we discover what he was up to: he set up the exact same scene that we saw on the selfie, but with the mannequins. Then he takes the selfie, prints it out and hangs it on his booth. Now we feel he is not that alone. He is surrounded by “friends”. Now, he’s having dinner: eating straight out of a food container. He offers a bite to a mannequin sitting next to him. Obviously the mannequin doesn´t eat, Justino smiles and keeps eating.

We cut back to the alarm clock. It is a different night. We see him again on the bus and the same guy sleeping on his shoulder as well. Justino has no problem with it.

Then we see him in the factory, playing imaginary football in the common area. Some mannequins are his rivals. He shoots but a goalie mannequin stops the ball with the head (standing still, of course). Justino smiles.

Back to the alarm clock. Next day. Justino is walking around the factory, then something grabs his attention. There’s a calendar with a date highlighted that says “MY BDAY” on it. He has an idea. We see him walking around carrying a mannequin.

Cut to daylight, we see a mannequin with a piece of pie on a plate on his hands. A girl arrives to her cubicle, and finds the mannequin offering the pie to her. It’s her birthday so she blushes and smile. Then she looks around, trying to figure out who did it.

Esperanza, the cleaning lady/maintenance woman (50 year old grumpy but lovable woman), looks at the mannequins with a clueless expression on her face. She starts gathering up the mannequins back to the warehouse, but doesn’t understand how they got out of the warehouse in the first place. Then we focus on the “selfie’s board”. The factory’s owner hangs a paper there where we read “XMAS LOTTERY. IF YOU WANT TO PLAY THE COMPANY’S NUMBER SIGN IN HERE”. The guy who hanged the paper is the first to sign.

Then we see Justino carrying another mannequin around the factory. Then cut and go to the next day. It’s daytime, and a bunch of employees are laughing while looking at something. In a reverse angle we discover a mannequin with white hair and beard, dressed with a blue suit and tie and holding a golf club. The boss arrives and people vanish trying to hide their smile. The mannequin is an exact replica of the boss. He looks at it not knowing what to do, but then starts laughing.

We cut to a scene where people keep signing on the list hanging on the board.

We cut again, and it’s nightime. Justino is sitting on an empty bus. He is the only passenger. Then we go inside the factory where Justino, already wearing his uniform, is sitting down in front of a mannequin, looking straight into his eye with the mannequin “looking” back at him. Then Justino does something we can’t see on the mannequin’s face. Then we cut to daylight, and we see an old woman wearing a fur coat looking at the camera with a huge smile on her face. Another woman stops next to her, looks at the same point and smiles as well. On a reverse angle we discover that they are on a mall. They are looking at a store window, where there are 3 mannequins. One of them is the one Justino modified. Now the mannequin has a funny smile on his face while the others have no expression at all.

Then we jump to different scenes on the factory during daytime. People keep finding Justino’s “work”. Two workers on the assembly line find out that the mannequins are all set up so they look like they’re “dancing” Saturday Night Fever style. People keep signing on the lottery’s list.

Now we go to a morning scene at the front door of the factory. Two workers are about to arrive to work, but before they open the main door, a snowball hits one of them in the face. They look around to find three or four mannequins on a snowball fight scene. They look at the mannequins not understanding anything. Then we see another coworker is laughing, hidden behind the mannequins; he is the one who threw the ball. It’s amazing, but Justino has influenced their colleagues with a playful spirit.

Esperanza keeps carrying the mannequins back to the warehouse. She doesn’t understand what’s going on and keeps looking at the mannequins trying to figure out if they are alive or not. So this time, just in case, she locks the door.

And we see Justino passing by day by day, not noticing the list for he is too busy carrying mannequins from one place to another to set up all these “scenes”.

Back to nighttime, Justino is on a mission. He goes from one place to another, keeps moving around mannequins, goes up, goes down, non-stop. He keeps walking, passes the board with the list hanged on it and in one of those passes, he hits the board accidentally with a mannequin leg, and the list falls into the ground, out of his sight. Looks like he lost his last chance to put his name on it.

Cut to Esperanza’s face. She is astonished. She just found out Justino’s masterpiece. Every worker who arrives to the scene stands next to Esperanza open mouthed. On a reverse angle we see what Justino was doing last night. He built a huge Christmas tree, made out of mannequins (kind of a huge cheerleader pyramid but more complex and beautiful). The mannequins on the corners are holding lights, while the one on the top is holding a star. Esperanza sighs because she will be the one collecting them back to the warehouse again, but the boss puts a hand on her shoulder with a smile on his face. This time that wontt be necessary.

Then we cut and see a whole scene on all four security screens in Justino’s booth. Looks like someone brought great news to the factory and all the workers start celebrating, opening champagne bottles, throwing confetti, hugging and kissing each other, one of them even shows a lottery ticket to the camera. We see all this on a time lapse. After a while, they all leave the factory and turn the lights off, leaving a trail of happiness behind.

The day is gone and the night comes. Justino’s alarm clock beeps, waking him up. Like any other day, he slept during the day, so he has no idea what happened. He gets up and goes to work. Back to an empty bus, where something happens. The guy used to sleeping on his shoulder has a newspaper on his lap. Justino looks at it and sees a picture of all his workmates posing in front of the factory smiling and celebrating. A headline says something like “LOS GANADORES DE EL GORDO” (El Gordo’s winners). He sighs, not sad but with a melancholic look.

When he arrives, he gets into the building and, one more time, into the elevator. He sighs one more time, but when the elevator doors open, he finds something he wasn’t expecting.

In front of him, a mannequin wearing his uniform and his nametag is offering him a lottery ticket. He doesn’t understands what’s going on.

Then the noise of a champagne bottle being opened gets his attention. He looks right to see all the employees of the factory, who were hidden, waiting to celebrate with Justino.

Justino’s eyes get watery. He’s definitely not alone.

December 22. Christmas Lottery draw.

There is no bigger prize than sharing.