On the 2nd of December 2016 Sweden celebrated the world’s oldest Freedom of the Press Act – 250 years of media freedom and transparency. But, in many parts of the world, fundamental rights and freedom of speech are increasingly under threat. Therefore, Sweden’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs decided to launch a campaign to defend freedom of speech.

The brief was to create a global discussion around freedom of speech and transparency – and show that Sweden is a strong, long-term supporter of this issue. The objective was to highlight and create understanding for the importance of free speech in the world today.

In this film we see how eerily quiet things become when important speeches are silenced. We see Leonardo DiCaprio, Emma Watson and Malala Yousafzai as they are about to hold their famous speeches. But instead there’s only silence since we edited out the actual talking from their speeches.

The campaign was launched under the hashtag #freethespeech on the day of the 250th anniversary of the Freedom of Press Act in Sweden – the oldest in the world.

During that day Swedish embassies and institutions all over the world, one after another depending on which time zone they represented - shared the film in their social media channels. They were also responsible for trying to get the word out to local press.

Sweden’s Minister for Foreign Affairs, gave the campaign an extra push, by holding her own “silent speech” during a major freedom of speech conference that day. Our partner the United Nations also joined in and helped spread the message around the world.