adidas: Creators Unite
A high-energy global journey following young creatives from London, Paris, New York, and Los Angeles as they team up with adidas to reimagine the launch of the iconic Copa football boot in their own cities.
ABOUT
LOCATIONS: Herzo, London, Paris, New York, Los Angeles
adidas: Creators Unite is a short branded documentary created for adidas in collaboration with IMA Global, celebrating the power of youth-led creativity in sport and culture.
The film follows four groups of students from London, Paris, New York, and Los Angeles, each tasked with designing a unique launch for the adidas Copa football boot in their home city.
Beginning at adidas’ global headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany, and travelling to four of the world’s most culturally vibrant cities, the story captures an intense creative process — from inspiration-gathering on the streets to collaborating with local Tango football players, and finally, bringing each vision to life through immersive launch events.
A fast-paced, visually dynamic whistle-stop tour of four awe-inspiring cities, Creators Unite showcases how the next generation of creators draw from their environments, traditions, and communities to shape the future of sport, brand storytelling, and cultural connection.
“Creators are important because they change the world — politics, brands; everything. They defy convention and they move the world forward...”
CREATORS & COLLABORATORS
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Simon Mulvaney
FILMMAKER
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Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu
MUAY THAI FIGHTER
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Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu
ATHLETE MANAGER
PERSONAL REFLECTION
I didn’t go to Thailand to make this film. I just happened to be in Chiang Mai at the same time as Sylvie — backpacking with a small camera, a drone, and a single lens. Just capturing bits of local life — chasing stories.
The night I met Sylvie, she was fighting at Tha Phae Boxing Stadium. No fanfare, no film crew, not even a plan. Just Sylvie and her opponent — stepping into something sacred.
Later that night, with the chaos of that tiny stadium still ringing in my ears, I found Sylvie on Facebook and reached out.
She invited me to her hometown of Pattaya — two days of hitchhiking and sleeper trains from Chiang Mai.
Arriving at her local gym, Petchrungruang, it became immediately clear that, despite her grace and accommodating nature, Sylvie wasn’t particularly interested in the film I was making — she was there to train, as she did every day. To push herself beyond herself, into a new way of being.
I spent just two hours with her that day, sweltering in the midday humidity — just me and Sylvie. No plan. No client. No expectations. No one to impress. Watching. Listening. Letting her story unfold, on her own terms.
What struck me wasn’t just the impressive achievement of her fight record, but the fire that fuelled it.
Her relationship with Muay Thai was layered and deeply emotional — complex in a way that can’t be wrangled into clumsy words. That complexity became the backbone of the film.
I edited Under The Rope on the road — late nights in hostel dorms, with the occasional luxury of an air-conditioned café. That haphazard combination of post-production and tramping feels almost romantic to me now.
I didn’t know quite what I had — just that something in there felt truthful. All I had to do was find it and present it with a sense of emotional depth, reflective of her quiet stoicism.
In the end, Under The Rope became my first Vimeo Staff Pick. I was living on the banks of Lake Atitlán in Guatemala when I received the news, and promptly treated myself to a head-sized avocado to celebrate.
The feature opened doors I’d never had the guts to knock on, and gave me the confidence to more vigorously follow my intuition in all aspects of life — an approach that’s directly led to more projects of this ilk. But most importantly, after spending the five years prior directing back-to-back commercials, it reminded me what I love about filmmaking: meeting beautiful people, living beautiful lives, holding a mirror to their journey and presenting its reflection to an audience — so that through it, they might better see and understand themselves.
This wasn’t a funded project, or even a polished one. It was a story that found its way to me when I was open enough to receive it — and brave enough to follow it wherever it wanted to go.