In the early 1990s a major world sports organisation, the International Olympic Committee, had to decide how to handle the breakup of the Soviet Union. Would the IOC allow the former Soviet Union countries to complete in the upcoming Winter Olympic Games as one united team, and if so under what name? Or should it allow each of the various new states just being formed to send its own team or squad, providing a logistical nightmare? Either way, the International Olympic Committee seemed bound to face widespread international controversy.
MediaZones’ solution was: make a documentary about the International Olympic Committee’s intervention. The IOC commissioned MediaZones (via its sister company East-West Productions) to accompany the IOC President on his team’s highly confidential trip around the former Soviet Union, and to create the video.
In filming and distributing documentary material, the focus was placed on the complex difficulties faced by the individual IOC leaders taking the decision, and on the skillful and diplomatic way in which the process of decision-making was taken. It showed the IOC’s actions (in taking that decision) as logical and understandable.
No amount of article-writing or television debate could have achieved this purpose. The decision was generally approved by most of the world’s sporting bodies and media commentators.