Bring Back the Whistle Dog

Created as an ode to one of A&W's long lost menu items, this short documentary became a comedy hit at film festivals all over the world.

For years, Anthill and Rethink have teamed up on some of the agency's more... let's say... "non-traditional" projects. So when the Rethinkers came to us with the idea of making a documentary about a hot dog we weren't too surprised. But we didn’t expect that it would end up screening at Tribeca and film festivals around the world!

Together with Rethink, Anthill's small documentary production team traveled across Western Canada to capture five passionate “Whistle Dog warriors”—from Winnipeg, Edmonton, Calgary, and Vancouver—who had written songs, launched petitions, and even gone on radio to champion the return of the Whistle Dog. What started as a fun five-minute piece to surprise these superfans with a Whistle Dog  turned into a quirky, heartfelt 18-minute doc about nostalgia, community, and one oddly powerful menu item.

When A&W quickly sold out of their initial limited release of Whistle Dogs before the film was ready for launch, the Youtube release was put on hold. In the meantime, on a whim Rethink submitted the doc to a few film festivals, and within a year 42 festivals across 15 countries had screened the doc, including the prestigious Tribeca X Awards.