International Design Competition: Culture Mirror

Culture Mirror: the international design competition that reinvents cinema as a brand

Organized this year in partnership with the HSE Art and Design School and the Beijing Central Academy of Fine ArtsThe Intuit Lab School presents its annual international design competition: Culture Mirror. This new edition invites students from five countries, France, Russia, China, India and Brazil, to share their perspectives and express their full creativity.

An international design competition unlike any other

This international design competition is based on a simple yet demanding principle. Each student selects an iconic film from a partner country. Their mission? Not to promote it, but to extract its core essence. From this essence, they create a completely original brandrooted in its own culture.

Therefore, it's not about reproducing the visuals of the film; the link with the film must remain conceptual. What matters is the meaning, the emotions, the values ​​that the film conveys.

This is precisely what distinguishes Culture Mirror from other design competitions. It doesn't just test graphic skills. It assesses the ability to make sense, to translate a culture into brand language. It's an exercise in creative strategy as much as in design.

Films from around the world as a source of inspiration

For this international design competition, each participating country selected five iconic films. These works reflect unique cultural codes, visual traditions, and social experiences.

Participants thus discover a wide variety of films. Brazil is represented by the raw urban realism of The city of God by Fernando Meirelles and the poetic tenderness of Central do Brasil by Walter Salles. China offers the historical and lyrical epic ofFarewell, my concubine Chen Kaige's and the contemporary social drama of Dying to Survive by Wen Muye. France reveals itself through the dreamlike aesthetic of Fabulous Destiny of Amélie Poulain by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and the adaptation of Molière's play, The Miser, by Louis de Funès. India offers the melodramatic splendor of Devdas by Sanjay Leela Bhansali and the educational satire of 3 idiots by Rajkumar Hirani. Finally, Russia presents the post-Soviet drama Brother Aleksey Balabanov's dreamlike and sensory narrative Petrov's Fever by Kirill Serebrennikov.

This diversity is a stimulating challenge. Students must understand radically different cinematic languages. They work with worldviews that are often foreign to them.

Culture Mirror: From the Seventh Art to Branding

Initiated by Mitya Harshak (HSE Art and Design School of Saint Petersburg) and Clément Derock (intuit.lab), the international design competition Culture Mirror challenges students to translate the essence of a film into a brand identity.

The methodology demands rigorous analysis: the student must first dissect the work (emotions, values, atmosphere, cultural tensions) to extract a conceptual core. This core becomes the foundation of an original, locally rooted, and credible brand. The key to success? The final project must be strong enough to stand on its own and exist completely independently of the film.

Following deliberations by international juries, the five grand prize winners (one per country) will win a week-long cultural trip to a partner city (Paris, Saint Petersburg, Shanghai, Mumbai, or São Paulo). In addition, the 15 most outstanding projects will be featured in a traveling exhibition at partner institutions worldwide.

Why Culture Mirror is a unique international design competition

This competition embodies an ambitious and humanistic vision of design. It encourages creatives to break out of their cultural bubble and to use design as a tool for dialogue between civilizations.

It demonstrates that cinema can be much more than entertainment. It can become a bridge between cultures, a raw material for inventing unique brands.