By MCN Editor editor@moviecitynews.com

DECEMBER 1st WORLD AIDS DAY FREE BROADCAST OPPORTUNITY – THE LAZARUS EFFECT

Posted Monday, October 4th, 2010 - 1 Comment »
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Produced In Association with (RED)™ And Anonymous Content;
Directed By Lance Bangs; Executive Produced By Spike Jonze

(RED)™ has teamed up with HBO Documentary Films to produce THE LAZARUS EFFECT, an exclusive powerful and moving 30 minute documentary recording the extraordinary life-restoring effects of Antiretroviral drugs (ARVs) on four HIV-positive individuals from Lusaka, Zambia.

The (RED)™ team is currently in MIPCOM offering THE LAZARUS EFFECT in an unprecedented manner to broadcasters around the world the opportunity to air FREE OF CHARGE on December 1st, WORLD AIDS DAY.

Directed by Lance Bangs and executive produced by Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation), THE LAZARUS EFFECT chronicles the true-life resurrections of people who only a few years ago would have had no chance of survival. The English language film is full of hope, yet a reminder that almost 4,000 people still die every day from AIDS in Africa, as the treatment is not universally available.

Director Lance Bangs said “(RED), Spike and I went into this film wanting Connie, Bwalya, Concillia and Paul to tell their own stories about their miraculous transformations. Until ARVs became available, HIV was a death sentence. Now, with the right support, education and funding, people with the virus, who have access to the medication, have a chance to live normal, healthy lives. For us, Bwalya’s story in particular represents the millions of children currently living with HIV in Sub-Saharan Africa. Unfortunately, her subsequent death is a sorrowful reminder that AIDS is a killer disease and that the need for early diagnosis and treatment are critical.”

THE LAZARUS EFFECT will be aired by HBO in the US and Channel 4 in the UK on World AIDS Day,December 1st. (RED) wishes to offer other broadcasters around the world the opportunity to join this international awareness campaign and air the documentary free of charge, this December 1st on the occasion of World AIDS Day.

You can view The Lazarus Effect online now here: http://www.youtube.com/joinred#p/u/0/l16YH6xCN4c

By broadcasting THE LAZARUS EFFECT, channels will benefit from
· Half an hour of quality programming free of charge
· Helping to raise the awareness of the ARV treatments against HIV and AIDS in Africa
· PR opportunity around World AIDS Day
Also available is a 30 second campaign teaser featuring celebrities supporting (RED):
Hugh Jackman, Gwen Stefani, Naomi Watts, Penelope Cruz, Orlando Bloom, Iman, Julianne Moore and Javier Bardem among others. The campaign equates the relative value of 20 pence/40 cents by comparing trivial items of the same cost e.g. a stick of gum, a smear of lipstick — to the value of one day’s worth of life transforming antiretroviral medication.

If you wish to be one of the broadcasters joining the global or international awareness campaign, please contact RED distribution rep. Ana Vicente on thelazaruseffectdistribution@joinred.com

(RED), the largest business sector funder of the Global Fund, supported the production of the documentary to show the impact that effective, targeted aid is having in the fight against the AIDS pandemic in Africa.

Sheila Roche, Head of Global Communications, (RED) and one of the producers of THE LAZARUS EFFECT said, “(RED) felt it was important to tell this story and share with the rest of the world the tremendous effect that providing access to life-saving treatment is having on the lives of real people and their communities throughout Africa. This is an area where big and real results are happening, for very little money. The cost of life-saving ARV medication is now 20 pence per day – that’s an incredible bargain, and we have to maintain investment in order to ensure that millions more people don’t die needlessly from this preventable and treatable disease.”

– Ends –

NOTES TO EDITORS

About (RED)™and (PRODUCT)RED

(RED)’s primary objective is to engage the private sector in raising awareness and funds for the Global Fund, to help eliminate AIDS in Africa. Companies whose products take on the (PRODUCT)RED mark contribute a significant percentage of the sales or portion of the profits from that product to the Global Fund to help finance AIDS programs in Africa, with an emphasis on the health of women and children. Current partners are: American Express (U.K. only), Apple, Bugaboo, Converse, Gap, Emporio Armani, FLOWE(RED) (U.K. only), Hallmark (US only), Dell, Nike, and Starbucks. Since its launch in the Spring of 2006, $150 million has been generated by (RED) partners and events for the Global Fund. (RED) money is at work in Swaziland, Rwanda, Ghana, Lesotho, Zambia, and South Africa and supports programs that have reached more than 5 million people. For more information, visit www.joinred.com.

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Posted in Movie City News, Press Releases | 1 Comment »

One Response to “DECEMBER 1st WORLD AIDS DAY FREE BROADCAST OPPORTUNITY – THE LAZARUS EFFECT”

  1. Jason Brereton says:
    November 30, 2010 at 8:02 am

    please look at my video, it’s about HIV issues that happens in Family life..

    this is the youtube link to it

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fiipBbqDXS0

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon