“When we are able to find personal stories that documentaries do very,
very well; and illuminate for people the conditions [of] people who are
dealing directly with this issue… there’s ways that people come to this
that really are effective and touch us when we hear their stories
crafted through the careful eye of the documentarian,” said actor and UN
Environment Programme (UNEP) Goodwill Ambassador, Don Cheadle, in an interview for the UN News Centre.
Mr. Cheadle was one of the guest speakers at the conference, Envision 2012: Stories for a Sustainable Future,
which focussed on developing a better global future through building on
three key issues: just and sustainable cities; clean water; and green
energy. Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro opened the forum on
Monday.
The conference is a partnership between the Creative Community Outreach
Initiative of the UN Department of Public Information, the Independent
Filmmaker Project and the Ford Foundation. It was founded on the shared
belief that storytelling and documentary film can be powerful tools in
building a better future for all people.
“I think it’s [documentary story-telling] an effective tool and
hopefully one of the tools that we’ll be able to use in the quest to
draw more attention to the subject matter,” Mr. Cheadle said.
Now in its fourth year, the gathering connected United Nations experts
and non-governmental organizations with people working in filmmaking and
new media, and enabled them to work together to find new and compelling
ways to create momentum for social change.
Anchored by the UN’s anti-poverty goals known as the Millennium
Development Goals and held at the Ford Foundation's New York
headquarters, the event was also aimed at helping build momentum for the
UN Conference on Sustainable Development, also known as Rio+20, being
held in Brazil in June.
The Goodwill Ambassador said the issues raised by Rio+20 affect everyone, and warrant everyone’s attention.
“Ultimately, this is an issue that everyone is going to have to pay
attention to because, I believe, it’s going to hit home very hard for a
lot of people,” Mr. Cheadle said. “But we’d like to kind of get ahead of
the curve and not have to wait until things are desperate, and water
needs are disproportionate to our ability to get it, so hopefully the
things that are brought up in Rio will spark debate, spark discussion,
and sort of get the idea rolling a little faster.”
source: un.org
source: un.org
