This year Reporters without Borders celebrates its 20th birthday. It is, however, a birthday that shouldn’t be celebrated. This was the perfect moment for raising awareness about what they do and what they’re about. For almost more than 20 years RWB risk their lives against one common enemy: The war on freedom (of information). This war is kept very much alive thanks to the world’s current ‘modern dictators’ who reign in countries like Syria, Russia, China, Zimbabwe and of course North Korea.

The video opens on a series of dictators entering the scene and preparing for an important speech. From then on, they “sing” Happy Birthday: short bursts of actual video footage are combined to recreate the iconic song.

Together, the dictators sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to Reporters Without Borders Belgium to mark their 20th anniversary. After all, they are the reason Reporters Without Borders exists: to fight for press freedom.

After the requisite ‘hip hip hooray’, the film closes on a simple super that brings the message home: One day, we hope to stop celebrating our birthday.

One day, Reporters Without Borders hopes to stop existing altogether. In a world where dictators no longer rule, and censorship no longer exists.

The film is a mash-up video, combining short fragments of speeches by current and recent dictators such as Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-Un, Recep Erdogan, Bashar Al-Assad, Muammar Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein and more. Together they are singing the happy birthday song.