Cartier Women's Initiative

21 women’s stories shot in 17+ countries in only 3 weeks time

We all know Cartier for its luxury watches. What fewer people know is that the Cartier Foundation, organiser of The Cartier Women’s Initiative, drives an annual international entrepreneurship program & award show to support female impact entrepreneurs worldwide.

Makmende’s expertise in telling impact stories around powerful women, its worldwide network of local impact film makers and Makmende’s capacity to shoot in multiple countries simultaneously made us Cartier’s best partner in crime for this amazing adventure. So our crews started shooting talentful female entrepreneurs from Chile and New-Zealand to Nigeria and Denmark when suddenly Covid-19 hit. Yet, despite sudden lockdowns & restrictions our teams managed to deliver to the highest standards in a timely manner.

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Due to the global pandemic, Cartier also had to cancel its live event in Paris and was forced to move the Award Show online. Makmende was asked on short notice to step in to curate this online event & provide a format & content that would make the entire happening as surprising and engaging as possible. As a team we learned that it’s important to include short breaks, we called them ‘breathers’. We created short re-edits of the 21 portraits we had shot before and we asked the participants to send us homemade video fragments shot on their mobile phones. The combination of both types of content made the show diverse, inspirational and entertaining.