A moveable feast-day

While many yuletide ads are anticipating joyful family gatherings at home after the restrictions of 2020, the sad fact is that hundreds of thousands of people will be spending Christmas without a home. 

Since the pandemic started, 180,000 households have been tipped into homelessness and with a tough winter ahead even more people could lose their homes.  

Most will be families trapped in poor temporary accommodation, but there will also be people sofa-surfing, as well as those forced to sleep rough under bridges or in parked up cars, constantly moving from one spot to the next.

Don’t Panic has collaborated with Smuggler director Jamie Rafn to create The Drive, a beautifully acted, achingly sad film about a mother trying to cheer up her teen daughter – by singing Wham’s yuletide favourite, Last Christmas, to her – as they set off in a ropey car that will be their home for the holidays.

Rick Dodds, Creative Partner at Don’t Panic says; “We wanted to counter the traditional ‘us and them’ narratives you see so regularly in this space. We heard and read the stories of some people experiencing homelessness to ensure we came up with an idea that captured the raw reality of what it’s like to be homeless this Christmas. It was all about humanising the issue.”

Jamie Rafn continues; “The choice of song was also extremely important. We wanted an inherently joyous track that would make viewers smile and love the characters. The more we enjoyed their performance the more heartbroken we’d be at the end.