Ahead of the Millennium Summit in New York The Global Fund’s Born HIV Free campaign launches “Inside”: a stunning new film made by Mac Guff Paris
02 September 2010
Geneva, 2 September 2010 - The Global Fund’s Born HIV Free campaign today launched “Inside”, a new video created by the trail blazing animator Mac Guff Paris. The Born HIV Free campaign was initiated and supported by Carla Bruni-Sarkozy for The Global Fund.
The video, which aims at increasing attention to the campaign’s website, is being released as we enter the final countdown to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Summit in New York from 20 to 22 September, and the end of the Born HIV Free campaign on October 5.
Using vivid animated films, social media platforms and offline special events to focus public attention on the issue of mother to child transmission of HIV, the Born HIV Free campaign was created to encourage the public to endorse their government’s full support for the Global Fund by signing a petition on www.bornhivfree.org.
“I want to make a personal call to people to sign up to the campaign on bornhivfree.org and support The Global Fund,” says Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, Global Ambassador for the protection of mothers and children against AIDS. “We need to put an end to the tragedy of 430,000 babies being born HIV-positive every year, when we have the means and the expertise to prevent this,” she added, as the campaign enters its final stage.
2010 is a decisive year for the achievement of the health-related Millennium Development Goals, a set of ambitious targets set by nations in 2000, among others to reduce child mortality, improve maternal mortality, and combat HIV/AIDS and other diseases. Due to important progress made in the recent years, it is now possible to add elimination of transmission of HIV from mother child to these goals. However, this will only be possible if the funding and political commitment made for the next five years is secured this year.
The animated film depicts an imagined environment of two babies playing before birth, to capture the beauty and potential of life for a healthy child. It ends with a message by Global Ambassador Carla Bruni-Sarkozy stating: “Life is beautiful. Don’t let AIDS kill it before it starts.”
Carla Bruni-Sarkozy became Global Ambassador for the Protection of Women and Children Against AIDS in December 2008, and then declared that one of the ways she wanted to act in this role was by engaging the world of art, culture, fashion and entertainment for the cause of ensuring that virtually all children are born HIV free.
The Global Fund is the main multilateral contributor to the health-related MDGs, not only fighting AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria but also contributing to improving the health of mothers and children, for which the elimination of transmission of HIV from mothers to their children is a critical target. It is one of the first significant ‘wins’ that can be achieved in the fight against AIDS.
The majority of HIV infections transmitted from HIV-positive mothers to their children occurs at the time of delivery or during breastfeeding, rather than when the baby is in the womb. HIV infection at any of these stages can be prevented with the appropriate treatment.
Mac Guff Paris is a French animation film company and one of the main digital visual effects design studios in Europe. Its ambition is to push the limits of animation and photorealism, injecting a narrative as well as artistic values into these new fields. Mac Guff was recently in charge of the art direction of “Despicable me”, a computer-animated 3-D comedy film from Universal Pictures released last July. Mac Guff was commissioned to work on the movie for the Born HIV Free campaign. The main idea for the movie came from French advertisement executive Sébastien Vacherot, who worked with Julien Civange, initiator of the campaign at the request of Carla Bruni-Sarkozy.
After the film, viewers are invited to show their support by signing their name on the campaign’s “virtual wall of support”, on the www.bornhivfree.org website. The campaign asks people - by the simple act of clicking a button - to register their support for the work of The Global Fund and for the elimination of mother to child transmission of HIV by 2015.
The animation can be viewed on the Born HIV Free YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/bornhivfree) during the month of September and beyond.