Plant-based cheese brand Plonts gets a launch film

NYC-based Zach Tavel directs the absurdist launch film for plant-based cheese brand Plonts, planting a strong flag in the ground for the brand's absurdist perspective.

Playing on increasing consumer concern about climate change, Tavel parodies anxieties around whether individual efforts can significantly impact such a global threat. Enter Plonts, a new-to-market plant-based cheese that seeks to provide chefs and consumers alike with a plant-based alternative that tastes and melts, like dairy.

Satirising the myth of Sisyphus, the surrealist film stars comedian and actress Kate Berlant (Once Upon A Time In Hollywood, Don't Worry Darling), who plays a Zeus-like figure engaging in a comedic exchange with Charly Clive (Pure, All My Friends Hate Me) playing the mythologically inspired character, as she pushes a giant wheel of plant-based cheese up a mountain. Starting with a dialogue on the futility of singularly fighting climate change, the piece gets increasingly surreal, climaxing in a meltdown, pun intended, of biblical proportions.

"When it came time to create a launch film, we realised there was no better way to poke fun at the existential dilemma faced by consumers than to riff on the original absurdist comedy, the Myth of Sisyphus," Tavel explains.

"We chose to utilise old-school techniques like miniatures and models in a contemporary way, playing into the tension between feeling powerless in the face of a mythologically tremendous burden."

The practical effects, miniatures (created by BAFTA-winning production designer Brin Frost), cheese wheel, and Sisphyus scenes were all created and shot in London, while Kate Berlant's scenes were shot in Los Angeles. The talented VFX team, led by Simone Ghilardotti and John Malcome Moore, incorporated these traditional methods with contemporary techniques.

Beyond the video, Zach Tavel's NYC-based creative studio, Easy Pete's, handled the broader campaign for the brand. The studio developed every facet of the brand world, from its logo and overall identity to surreal product photography, as well as a big push on social video, collaborating with comedians and sketch groups to create original content to amplify the absurdist, climate-focused values of the brand.