VIDEO: Czech-Shot Christmas Milka Advert Debuts

Filmed by the director of Amélie in the Bohemian town of Loket, this nostalgic chocolate ad is now playing across Europe

Dave Park

Written by Dave Park Published on 12.11.2016 10:00:00 (updated on 12.11.2016) Reading time: 1 minute

A young boy impatiently waiting to peel back his advent calendar’s doors to get to Christmas is the basis for a new Milka advertisement currently rolling out across European markets.

The boy even builds a time machine to speed up the process.

Produced by Wieden + Kennedy Amsterdam, the advertisement was shot by acclaimed director Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who made Amélie and The City of Lost Children.

The advert takes place in Lilaberg, an Alpine village created by the advertising agency for Milka’s global campaign this year. The hamlet was fictional, but adverts earlier this year were actually shot in New Zealand, doubling for a village in the Alps.

To find the perfect Christmastime village, however, Milka was able to come closer to home: the Czech town of Loket, located about 150 km west of Prague.

But while Loket may have made for the ideal Christmas village, the advert was shot in May, with a decided lack of snow on the ground.

“Unfortunately, this place isn’t very wintery at that time of year, nor does it have a mountain backdrop,” W+K Creative Director Daniel Schaefer told AdWeek

“So we had to create a lot of fake snow, and our friends at McMurphy in Paris did an amazing CG and matte painting job in bringing this Alpine winter wonderland to life.”

Director Jeunet called the 90-second commercial “one of my favorite ads I’ve ever made”:

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