In order to celebrate the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, the “Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)” initiated the project ART FOR THE WORLD.
This project consists of a feature that is compiled from several 3-minute short films by approximately 22 filmmakers and video-artists. In collaboration with the Italian authorities and the World Cinema Foundation of Martin Scorsese, the world premiere of this film will take place during the International Film Festival of Rome in October 2008. The film will be distributed worldwide in as many different ways as possible. The film will be subtitled in the six official languages of the United Nations (English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Russian and Chinese).
The Palestinian-Dutch Hany Abu-Assad directed A BOY, A WALL AND A DONKEY. The film lasts three minutes and tells a story about three little boys who want to make a film in Ramallah. A BOY, A WALL AND A DONKEY was the first film to be completed and has already been screened at the Cannes International Film Festival 2008.
Bram Schouw directed IMPASSE: as a train rumbles trough the darkness, an African girl enters the wagon. A young man with a bald shaved head is staring out the window when she puts her luggage in the rack above his head. Except for him and the girl, everybody is asleep. He looks at her. When she looks back he turns his head away. His heart is bouncing so loud he can almost hear it. Love is blind, isn't it?
The other directors are: Sergei Bodrov, Souleymane Cissé, Etgar Keret/Shira Geffen, Rolf de Heer, Zhangke Jia, Murali Nair, Idrissa Ouedraogo, Kimberly Peirce, Walter Salles/Daniela Thomas, Saman Salour, Abderrahmane Sissako, Paolo Sorrentino, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Jasmila Zbanic and the video artists.
The film will also be presented in other cities on the 10th of December 2008, on the 60th birthday of the “Universal Declaration of Human Rights”, among others in New York during a special meeting of the “UN General Assembly’ and in Paris in the ‘Palais de Chaillot’, where the declaration was signed in 1948.
More information about ART FOR THE WORLD see www.art-for-the-world.com, click “activities”, then “film directors and artists for human rights – a collective film project” and then click “the film project”