ADIEFF highlights 'Poverty and Food' in its first annual festival

The event will present two showcases short and long documentaries in addition to long feature films that tackle "Food and Poverty", which are issues and challenges that face the world.The production of these movies goes back to two years ago and focuses on Poverty and shortage of food in several countries and societies around the world, some movies will address the soaring poverty rates in the developed world, particularly the United States where around 50 million people are estimated to be living under the poverty line.

Head of the Festival Mr. Mohamed Mounir said "We are happy to incorporate in our first year this special program on food which goes in line with our objectives; scarcity of food facing the whole world is a result of the environmental crisis worldwide. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) warned last year that the food industry around the globe may collapse in view of the lack of feasible economic policies around the world, it also warned of the continuous global rise of food prices that hit a record last year, which means more people will not be able to access food in the future."

Unwilling to disclose the names of the participating films, Mr. Mounir said the ADIEFF is working out final agreements with production companies to display their films in the Festival. "The films will be varied and will reflect several artistic schools. Our program is intended to celebrate food as an abundance that needs to be enjoyed by every human being on Earth. Some of the films will highlight the "philosophy" of food and cuisine in addition to the indifference on the part of the whole world in adequately addressing and sorting out the issue of food and foodstuff industry."

On the poverty theme, Mr. Mounir said the program will incorporate long and short feature films produced last year. "The films will highlight the issue of global poverty, its reasons and the price paid by the affected people."

He said the feature comes as a response by the Festival to this problem besetting millions of people in most countries around the world. He cites statistics by the Global Poverty Education Centre stating that 925 million live under the poverty line mostly in Asia.

"The World Bank says one out of four people in the world lives under the poverty line," he said.
He attributes such problems to the demolition of arable lands by drought and climate change.

It is worth mentining that Media Lab is organizing the Festival April 14-20, 2013 and will include competitions: Short film Competition, Long Film Competition, Lectures, seminars and public meetings will be held on the sidelines.

ADIEFF is one of the various endeavors made in line with Abu-Dhabi's plans to encourage natural conservation, alarm of its problems and find out rapid and effective solutions of such problems facing the whole world.