In the film, two lovebirds are afraid of making the first move. Luckily, turning the thermostat to 19° angles the bench they’re sitting on to 19° and the two lovers glide toward each other – in what feel like forever.

Finally, the two meet, proving that turning the thermostat down to 19° to save on energy isn’t all that bad.

The film is a case study in daft, curios humour. Its tone is awkward and slightly bizarre. And the quirky, formalistic universe set the mood. One couldn’t look away for a moment, even though every moment was dragged out in service of awkwardness, and rejoice when the two protagonists finally meet – all to hammer home the weirdly wonderful message: 19° isn’t totally off.

During the Energy Crisis in 2022, HOFOR (district heating provider for all of Copenhagen, Denmark) needed to encourage residents in the capitol of Denmark to turn down the heating in their homes.

War in Europe and inflation put the steady supply of energy under pressure. And to pull through, we need to pull together and save up some energy by turning down the thermostat.

Urging Danes to turn down their heating is a tough ask – especially during the cold Scandinavian winter. But the execution strategy – serving the badness with a spoonful of daftness – ensured that Danes listened and complied: HOFOR saw a 7% decrease in its heating supply in the month of December, at the height of winter. Which is what the campaign was all about: saving on energy.

Furthermore, the film made 8.6+ million impressions – within a city of approx. 2 million people(Copenhagen.)

In Danish, something being referred to as Unlevel/askew, also means it’s awry. With HOFOR wanting residents to turn their thermostats to 19 degrees, the message can easily be ”misunderstood” as a reference to an angle, rather than a temperature, to a rather hilarious effect.

In English, the “purposely misunderstood” message was “19° isn’t completely unlevel” which in Danish also means “19° isn’t completely awry”