For the Mission Talita campaign, I created a trailer for a custom GTA V mod where, instead of exploiting sex workers like in the original game, the player rescues them. The aim was to present a different kind of narrative within the GTA universe, as well as reaching a target group that’s notoriously hard to reach.

The campaign was created for Talita, a Swedish non-profit that supports women who want to leave prostitution, pornography, and human trafficking. Their work is rooted in both compassion and real-world impact, helping women transition to new lives through long-term support programs. With Mission Talita, the goal was to hijack the GTA franchise's massive cultural reach to spark a conversation around how women are portrayed—and mistreated—not just in games, but in society at large.

The creative brief was ambitious from the start: make a trailer so polished it feels like it was released by Rockstar themselves—even though the game is over a decade old. That alone was a huge challenge. But the project got off to a strong start when we quickly managed to get both Sting and Swedish House Mafia on board to contribute music to the film. Their involvement not only elevated the emotional tone of the trailer, but also gave the project an extra layer of cultural weight right from the start.

The first stage of the process involved a lot of trial and error—learning the in-game tools, testing different mods, and figuring out how to get the visuals to look the way I wanted. I installed a mix of graphical and utility mods to help with location scouting, set dressing, and animation workflows. Some footage was screen-captured live, but most of it was done in Rockstar Editor.

A big part of the process was also understanding how the GTA short film community works. It’s a very specific niche, and I spent time researching how people in that space approach filmmaking—how they communicate, what kind of visual language they use, and how they get around the many technical limitations of the game. That community was incredibly helpful.

We started with a basic outline edit, pieced together with found footage from YouTube, the music provided by the artist, and sound effects to get a rough idea of structure and pacing. Then I spent a lot of time building and recording all the scenes in GTA V, and handled the editing, post effects, and some color grading in After Effects and Premiere Pro. For a few shots, I rendered z-depth passes to add extra post effects.

The trailer was a centerpiece of the campaign and played a big role in the buzz it generated. It was picked up widely by press, gaming forums, and social media—and was a nominee at Cannes Lions in the Film category.