The World Health Organization (WHO) invites independent film-makers, production companies, NGOs, communities, students, and film schools from around the world to submit their original short films to the ‘2nd Health for All Film Festival’.
Launched in 2020, the festival aims to recruit a new generation of film and video innovators to champion global health issues.
The inaugural ‘Health for All Film Festival’ in 2019/2020 accepted 1,300 short film submissions from more than 110 countries.
The entries accepted focused on a wide range of topics, such as the challenges of providing health-care in remote areas and countries in conflict, the realities of living and battling cancer, and the courage and resilience of nurses and midwives in the face of the most challenging of circumstances.
“Telling stories is as old as human civilization. It helps us understand our problems and heal ourselves. WHO is proud to announce the second ‘Health for All Film Festival’, to cultivate visual storytelling about public health.
“We look forward to receiving creative entries inspired by WHO’s mission to promote health, keep the world safe, and serve the vulnerable”, said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.
The WHO stated that the competition categories this year will align with WHO’s global goals for public health. The films submitted should fall under the following three areas;
Universal health coverage (UHC): films about mental health, non-communicable diseases and other UHC stories linked to communicable diseases not part of emergencies;
Health emergencies: films about health emergencies, such as COVID-19, Ebola, as well as health responses in the context of humanitarian crises and in conflict-affected settings;
Better health and well-being: films about environmental and social determinants of health, such as nutrition, sanitation, pollution, and/or films about health promotion or health education.
WHO noted further that, for each of these three grand prix categories, judges will accept short documentaries or fiction films (3 to 8 minutes in length), short videos for social media or animation films (1 to 5 minutes in length).
Three other prizes will be awarded for a student-produced film, a health educational film aimed at youth, and a short video designed exclusively for social media platforms.
Submissions are open from 24 October 2020 to 30 January 2021.
After the close of submissions, critically-acclaimed artists from the film and music industries will review the shortlisted films with WHO experts and recommend winners to WHO’s Director-General, who will make the final decision. The jury composition will be announced in by January 2021.
According to the WHO, only short films completed between 1 January 2018 and 30 January 2021 are eligible for the Film Festival.
Additionally, any production made by United Nations staff members or exclusively done with UN funding is not eligible.
“A submission can be in any language; if it is not in English, English subtitles must be included”, the WHO said.
