Home Centre, a furniture and furnishings retail brand in the Middle East, has taken on the taboo around adoption and foster care in the region with an initiative called “The Homecoming.”
A prime component of the initiative is this moving film, Falling in love, launched this month on the brand’s social media platforms and in-store.
The film is an emotional visual journey that captures a couple’s apprehension, their joys, their anxieties, their collective perseverance as they overcome familial, societal as well as interpersonal odds to get to the goal of adopting a child. It’s written based on in-depth interviews with couples who have wanted to adopt or have adopted, and their journey over the 6 to 9 months it takes to adopt.
In the Middle East, adoption and fostering meet strong resistance, are actively denounced and are made legally challenging. The stigma attached runs through society, even often among family relatives.
But there is a pressing need for adoption and fostering given children orphaned by war and the refugee crisis—as well as abandoned children across the region.
This film pushes back against the taboos and misconceptions to help those parents who cannot have children as well as those parents who have children but want to add to their families through adoption and foster care.
Directed by Tahaab Rais who wrote the screenplay, the film out of Publicis Groupe MENAT–Leo Burnett Middle East features a licensed adaptation of Elvis Presley’s “Can’t Help Falling In Love.” As the film’s soundtrack, the song takes on an entirely new and profound meaning. (Director Rais serves as chief strategy officer for Publicis Groupe MENAT; this is the English version of the piece which has launched online.)
