World filmmakers to participate in Pangea Day

MUMBAI: Jehane Noujaim, award-winning documentary filmmaker of Control Room, with help of the TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) prize, is seeking filmmakers – professional or amateur – across the globe to produce films for Pangea Day, a landmark, one-day, global film event showcasing short films from around the world on 10 May, 2008.

Pangea Day plans to use the power of film to bring the world a little closer together. YouTube.com is supporting Pangea Day by hosting the trailer on its global homepage, as well as all nine of its international homepages, to encourage filmmakers to submit videos.

Says Noujaim, “Movies alone can’t change the world, but the people who watch them can. If you had the world’s attention for five minutes, what story would you tell? At these screenings, Pangea hopes to give people immediate, practical opportunities to put their inspiration to work through diverse organizations working to solve the challenges that — sooner or later — touch everyone on the planet.”

On May 10 2008, Pangea Day venues in Cairo, Dharamsala, Jerusalem, Kigali, London, New York City, Ramallah and Rio de Janeiro will be linked to produce a four-hour program of powerful films, visionary speakers, and uplifting music. Also, the world will be watching as the program will be broadcast live through the Internet, television, digital cinemas, and mobile phones.

Celebrities and other influential people have are already committed to this project. Advisory Board members include:

— J.J. Abrams, Film and Television Producer (Lost, Mission Impossible 3, Alias)

— Cameron Diaz, Actress (There’s Something About Mary, Vanilla Sky, Shrek)

— Goldie Hawn, Actress, Director and Producer (Cactus Flower, Private Benjamin)

— Eboo Patel, Executive Director, Interfaith Youth Core

— Meg Ryan, Actress (When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle, You’ve Got Mail)

— Jeff Skoll, CEO of Participant Productions and Former President of eBay

The TED community is also rallying around the project, in particular with the support of Avenue A / Razorfish, an interactive agency who has generously donated its creative services to Pangea Day, which include the creation of the web site ( www.pangeaday.org) and digital advertising and marketing services. TEDsters are also supporting the project financially, including a USD 1 million pledge from TED Curator Chris Anderson.

Adds Anderson, “My foundation has pledged support for the project because of my conviction that all the toughest global issues — war, poverty, public health, global warming — have at their core a failure of moral imagination. If enough of us could abandon us/them thinking and really see people from all cultures as part of one connected whole, the world would find the political will to solve these problems. Film has the power to inspire that moral imagination, and Pangea Day will be a transformative way of harnessing that power.”