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Adidas Owns the Reality

Prankster activists perform an elaborate hoax to improve conditions for garment workers in the Adidas supply chain. Staging a shocking runway show at Berlin Fashion Week, they use humor and mischief to make the world pay attention to labor and environmental abuses that the massive sportswear brand is trying to hide.

  • Keil Orion Troisi
    Director
    Total Disaster (2022), Peace Pipeline (2021), Human Resources (2015), I Was a Teenage Horror Movie (2022)
  • Igor Vamos
    Director
    Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm, The Yes Men Fix the World (2009), The Yes Men Are Revolting (2015)
  • The Yes Men
    Producer
    The Yes Men, The Yes Men Fix the World, The Yes Men Are Revolting
  • Threads and Tits
    Producer
  • Clean Clothes Campaign
    Producer
  • Len Leng
    Key Cast
    "Vay Ya Nak Phoan"
  • Igor Vamos
    Key Cast
    "Buddy Blatnick"
  • Isabell Schnalle
    Key Cast
  • Paula Keilholz
    Key Cast
  • Project Type:
    Documentary, Short
  • Genres:
    Comedy, Activism, Environmental, Labor, Human rights, Fashion, Gender justice
  • Runtime:
    21 minutes 28 seconds
  • Completion Date:
    July 15, 2024
  • Country of Origin:
    United States
  • Country of Filming:
    Cambodia, Germany
  • Language:
    Central Khmer, English
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital, 4K and HD
  • Aspect Ratio:
    16:9
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Slamdance
    Los Angeles
    February 20, 2025
  • Big Sky Doc Fest
    Montana
    February 14, 2025
  • Buffalo International Film Festival
    New York
    October 12, 2024
    BEST SHORT EXPERIMENTAL
  • Kuala Lumpur Eco Film Festival
    Kuala Lumpur
    October 25, 2024
    BEST SHORT DOCUMENTARY
  • Films for Future
    Zurich
    AUDIENCE AWARD (Best Short)
  • Canadian Labour Film Festival
    Multiple venues
    BEST OF FEST AWARD + SOLIDARITY AWARD
  • Workers Unite Film Festival
    New York
    October 19, 2024
    BEST SHORT HONORABLE MENTION
  • Watch Docs
    Warsaw
    November 24, 2024
Director Biography - Keil Orion Troisi, Igor Vamos

Igor Vamos ("Mike Bonanno") is a founder of notorious comedy-activism group The Yes Men, whose satirical interventions form the basis of three award-winning feature documentaries, “The Yes Men” (2004), “The Yes Men Fix the World” (2009), and “The Yes Men Are Revolting” (2014), festival favorites in Toronto, Berlin, Sundance, SXSW and others. Their work has been shown in the Whitney Biennial, Venice Biennale, ARS Electronica, and other major exhibitions. They are the recipients of numerous awards, including Creative Time's Leonore Annenberg Prize for Art and Social Change, Grierson Documentary Award, Berlinale Panorama Audience Award, the UN Association Film Festival Grand Jury Award, Best Documentary Award at HBO Comedy Arts Festival, and the Audience Award at the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam. Most recently, Vamos was a Consulting Producer on "Borat: Subsequent Moviefilm," and is recognized worldwide as an innovator in activism and pranks.

Keil Orion Troisi ("Jeff Walburn") has been a core member of The Yes Men since 2012, and co-wrote and produced most of their performance-interventions since 2016. He has collaborated with dozens of activist groups all over the world, using humor and mischief to advance environmental and social justice campaigns. He co-directed "Total Disaster" (2022) which had a 50+ festival run, won the David Imoh Sunday Social Justice Prize and took awards at Kursaal San Sebastien, Just Film, Better World, and Cine Eco Seia. He produced and co-wrote "Peace Pipeline," which won Best Documentary at Dallas VideoFest, ND Human Rights, Wolf Tree, Skoden, Jim Thorpe, Hell’s Half Mile, Fresh Coast, and others. He directed the corporate-horror features "Human Resources" and "I Was a Teenage Horror Movie!” (which has been an audience favorite across the genre-festival circuit). His films combine humor, horror, and playfulness to antagonize systems of power.

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Director Statement

Clean Clothes Campaign approached The Yes Men to develop a creative action that would dress down Adidas for pandemic-era labor abuses: the sportswear brand owes millions of euros to garment workers throughout their supply chain—and that’s on top an already growing pile of dirty corporate laundry!

In January, 2023, Jeff Walburn and Mike Bonanno of the Yes Men orchestrated an elaborate “utopian” media hack announcing that Adidas’ new CEO would share leadership with a former garment worker and union leader, Vay Ya Nak Phoan (Len Leng). As this announcement hit the newswires at the start of Berlin Fashion Week, the second stage of the action deployed. Fashionistas were shocked by a full runway show that claimed to be from Adidas but was in fact was the work of Berlin-based designer-activists Threads and Tits, who spent weeks turning what could have been merely a hoax into a real fashion show. Along with a website, subvertising campaign, press releases, and show swag, the shocking catwalk show debuted styles that were “exhuastively pre-stressed by the underpaid workers who made them.”

The action resulted in widespread press coverage and social media buzz. Just weeks later, Cambodian workers who had been fired for organizing were reinstated with back pay. In the months since, Clean Clothes Campaign and garment worker unions have won other victories, but Adidas still refuses to pay what they owe and to sign the Pay Your Workers agreement.