'Blood Diamond' Stars Speak Out Against World Hunger
The answer: "Hunger -- so deadly it kills 25,000 people a day."
These questions are being asked by actors Djimon Hounsou, and Jennifer Connelly, two stars of the film, Blood Diamond, in a new trailer for the World Food Programme (WFP) that will run ahead of the film in cinemas across the world. Blood Diamond opened in cinemas across Britain and Ireland on Friday, the 26th of January.
WFP, the world's largest humanitarian agency, hopes that the exposure generated by the Warner Bros. Pictures film will raise much-needed awareness of hunger and poverty, which stalk more than 850 million people globally.
The film includes scenes depicting realistic aid operations as undertaken by WFP in the 1990s while feeding thousands of war victims who fled within Sierra Leone and to neighbouring countries. At the time, WFP aid workers witnessed acute humanitarian needs and untold levels of violence and cruelty, similar to those depicted in the movie.
"Hunger is often the root cause of desperate acts by desperate people," said Neil Gallagher, WFP's Director of Communications. "Cinema is a very powerful medium to help generate greater awareness and concern about hunger, an issue largely ignored and little understood in the western world, where most people are far more worried about their waistlines."
"Hunger is bad governance, hunger is need, hunger is poverty, hunger is any number of things," said Edward Zwick, the director of Blood Diamond. "It's the outgrowth of something that is systemic, and when you have in place some system that is not enriching the lives of people whose country is being exploited, that leads to hunger. I think that exists in many areas of Africa, and in other parts of the world."
Zwick continued, "As filmmakers, we want to be accurate and, in so many circumstances, the World Food Programme has been at the centre of refugee camps and present in countries in distress - in Sierra Leone and in other places. So if we, in the context of a movie, can put that image and the knowledge in front of a whole host of people who don't know about it, then we're hopefully doing well by them."
Some of the photographs used in the film trailer are part of a WFP/Benetton campaign launched in 2003, called "Hunger", which featured powerful, intimate photos of war victims, including ex-combatants and amputees.
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Article adapted by Start Sanatate from original press release.
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WFP is the world's largest humanitarian agency: each year, we give food to an average of 90 million poor people to meet their nutritional needs, including 58 million hungry children, in at least 80 of the world's poorest countries.
WFP Global School Feeding Campaign - For just 19 US cents a day, you can help WFP give children in poor countries a healthy meal at school - a gift of hope for a brighter future.
For further information please go to:
World Food Program WFP - We Feed People
"Blood Diamond" Stele vorbi împotriva foametea în lume - 'Blood Diamond' Stars Speak Out Against World Hunger - articole medicale engleza - startsanatate