It is a short horror movie that raises the topic of creativity crisis, and presents the viewer with a question: where is the line that cannot be crossed in the name of art?

MTS is one of Russia’s largest telecom operators with a well-developed ecosystem of digital services. In 2021, the brand presented its new MTS KION online cinema. It is a subscription-based service, whereas 40% of young Russians prefer streaming their content illegally (by "Mediascope"). The goal of MTS KION is to show their target audience of millenials that KION’s engaging content is going to be worth paying for. In order to attract subscriptions and direct the viewers’ attention to its proprietary content, MTS KION decided to shoot feature films and publish them on a free YouTube channel. Eleusis, a horror short, was one of such movies, targeting a younger audience. In the lead role, it features Ivan Dorn, a popular singer. The film became his cinema debut.

It is a horror film about one-hit wonder Ivan in the deep state of a creative crisis is signed to a rehab program at the highly protected, isolated Sanatorium that promises a lifetime warranty for endless inspiration. A bourgeois setting with welcoming stuff slowly creeps into a violent cult that tortures artists in the name of inspiration, where Ivans greatest hit becomes his darkest nightmare. Ivan Dorn, a singer vastly popular in Russia and CIS countries, effectively played himself. The actor refers to certain details of his own biography. In the movie, the protagonist is haunted by his own greatest hit—and in these moments, we hear Ivan Dorn’s real hit, "Stycamen", Russia’s top hit back in 2012. The viewers were aware of the fictional nature of the plot, however the combination of imaginary events and a very real person helped create a particularly submersive story.

In order to attract subscriptions and direct the viewers’ attention to its proprietary content, MTS KION decided to shoot feature films and publish them on a free YouTube channel. Eleusis, a horror short, was one of such movies, targeting a younger audience. In the lead role, it features Ivan Dorn, a popular singer. The brand intentionally decided against product placements, with only the brand logo featured as a studio. This helped establish the brand as creator and supplier of high-quality content.

Eleusis is one of four horror movies shot for this project. A week before the first online showing, the brand held an offline premiere in order to fuel the hype through social media influencers. Afterwards, the movies were published in the brand’s YouTube channel. There was also a supporting campaign featuring announcements in the influencers’ social media accounts, stories in relevant media outlets, and promotion of the project’s own social media presence.

Project will be released on 26 April 2021.

The film received 300,000 organic views and over

600 comments on YouTube in the first week.

The main media that are relevant among our target

audience wrote about the project: Kinopoisk

(the main Russian media about cinema),

Meduza.io, GQ Russia, Vogue Ukraine, Glamor

Russia, The Flow, etc.

Many major bloggers spoke about the project,

such as TV presenter Alexander Gudkov

(1.8 million followers on Instagram), blogger

Danila Poperechny (1.6 million followers),

blogger Maria Minogarova (1.2 million followers),

etc. According to the analytics of the movie on

YouTube, the movie's likability was 96%,

and 83% of viewers were our target audience

(44% of viewers aged 18 to 24, 39% - from 25 to 34).