A new film prize at the 2008 Zanzibar International Film Festival for films relating to development policy issues

The Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH, in cooperation with the Zanzibar International Film Festival (ZIFF) and Southern Africa Communications for Development (SACOD) will be awarding the Ousmane Sembène Films for Development Award for the first time in 2008. The prize will be awarded to a film that takes a particular look at topics of development cooperation. It carries prize money of US $5,000 and is designed to help the winner in his or her future film-making career. The Festival will be held in Zanzibar/Tanzania from 11–20 July 2008.

The focus of the film selection in 2008 will be on HIV/AIDS, with topics such as gender, the environment and ecology, education and poverty following in the years to come. “HIV/AIDS poses a threat to people and societies throughout the world, particularly in the large majority of African countries, which are home to two-thirds of all people living with HIV. Future development in the countries of Africa depends to a large extent on whether the societies particularly hard hit by HIV manage to cope with this pandemic. That’s why we’re focusing on HIV/AIDS in the first year of the prize,” said Thomas Kirsch-Woik, GTZ expert on HIV/AIDS.

On behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), amongst others, GTZ is shaping the German contribution to the global AIDS response and is developing further approaches in the fields of HIV/AIDS prevention. GTZ is also steering the German input to the European hospital-twinning  Alliance ESTHER, the aim of which is to improve access to high quality treatment, care and prevention of HIV and AIDS in developing countries. Moreover, GTZ is further developing promising approaches to prevent mother to child transmission of HIV in Kenia and Tanzania .

As an international cooperation enterprise for sustainable development with worldwide operations, the federally owned Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) GmbH supports the German Government in achieving its development-policy objectives. It provides viable, forwardlooking solutions for political, economic, ecological and social development in a globalised world. Working under difficult conditions, GTZ promotes complex reforms and change processes. Its corporate objective is to improve people’s living conditions on a sustainable basis.