The film imagines the struggles of Van Gogh, one of the most appreciated, yet controversial artists of his time, had he been a struggling artist in the context of social media today.

The movie starts with Van Gogh in the present, launching into painting with excitement and getting inspired by the world around him. As any enthusiastic aspiring artist, he shares his work on social media and continues to enjoy his art and time with his friends, like a regular guy. Things take a negative turn, as he starts receiving hate on social media. From here, the character slowly descends into madness. Intensified by the rhythm of hateful comments hitting his inbox, he reaches the pinnacle of insanity with the famous ear-cutting scene.

The ending is left open: crushed by the hate, Van Gogh, now an Art-store clerk, struggles with the decision of giving up his art for good.

In Romania, cyberbullying is seen as a problem affecting kids and teens and all government and ONG programs focus on this target. A nationally representative brand study however revealed that this issue also greatly affects young adults – 76% of them are hesitant to post on social media for fear of receiving hate and 1in 4 hesitate to post about their passions and hobbies online. A third of our subjects said that they had been victims of online harassment and cyberbullying and over half stated that they have witnessed their friends being harassed on social media. To cope with this, both them and their friends alter their personality on line or give up sharing all together.

As a brand standing for authenticity and encouraging people to do their thing freely, we wanted to fight the widespread problem of cyberbullying that keeps people from being truly themselves online.