Covid, migration, the energy crisis … During the last few years many topics turned into irreconcilable differences – resulting in deep rifts, which even affected friends and families. While every opinion is important, they should never divide us. At Christmas the grocery store PENNY also tends to the emotional needs of its customers. At our stores, all opinions, people and their disputes meet. PENNY is the neighborhood market that stands for closeness and community. So, this year’s Christmas message speaks from the heart of the brand. We turned a typical apartment building into a reflection of a divided society and dive into all the recent hot topics, as we see opinions clash – resulting in emotional rifts between the residents and physical rifts in the building. The biggest challenge was to create authentic and relatable scenes. We wanted to avoid superficial box-ticking of current societal divisions. It was hard to give each sequence the complexity and truth they deserved. Additionally, we wanted to keep the discussions open, we didn’t want to decide, what’s “wrong” or “right”. This not what the film is about. In the film we relive the last few years of dividedness in only four minutes, climaxing in the sentence: “Can we talk?”. We experienced isolation, many difficult topics and stress, making us forget to gift each other a little bit more understanding – not only for Christmas. With this simple but often not easy solution we touched millions across the country. After a few days we hit 20 Mio. views and counted 43.000 interactions. We received loads of positive feedback such as “this should be a message from the government” or “as every year right on point of the Zeitgeist”. The community also recognizes themselves and admits: “It’s time to reach out to each other and talk.”