Academy Award-winning actress Charlize Theron will be awarded the Honorary Chair of this year’s Cinema for Peace Gala on February 9th at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in Berlin. The South African actress and United Nations Messenger of Peace is the founder of the Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project (CTAOP), which calls for medical education and battles against the spread of HIV. Charlize Theron will receive the Cinema for Peace Honorary Award for her commitment against the spread of the disease among young South Africans. More than 300,000 people die each year of AIDS in South Africa alone; an estimated 5.6 million people are infected with HIV or AIDS in South Africa and 34 million worldwide. “As a South African, Charlize Theron cares deeply about the human suffering of those infected, their families and friends due to HIV and AIDS. Every day thousands of people die of this disease. Charlize Theron’s Africa Outreach Project contributes tremendously in the concerned areas, helping to educate children and minors about HIV and AIDS as well as to support affected persons,” Cinema for Peace founder Jaka Bizilj explains and mentions that “since the FIFA World Cup and a premiere with Nobel Peace Prize winner Desmond Tutu in 2010, the Cinema for Peace Foundation has been fighting AIDS by presenting cinema screenings of the movie ‘Themba’ to young people in rural areas.” This year, Africa plays a major role in various program acts of the gala. Fatou Bensouda from Gambia, Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, will present the “Cinema for Peace Justice Award.” This category features movies such as “Class Dismissed” with Malala Yousafzai, who barely survived an assassination attempt last October after having refused to accept the Taliban decision not to go to school anymore. Other nominations in this category are “Invisible Children – Kony 2012,” “The Act of Killing,” “The Central Park Five” and “No.” Inspired by the portrait of a campaign leader, who triggered off the fall of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet by using creativity and a 15 minute advertising film, and will tell the story of how one of the most brutal and notorious dictators of the 20th century has been removed by peaceful means. The “International Human Rights Film Award” category, presented by Amnesty International, the Human Rights Film Network and the Cinema for Peace Foundation, will award the movie “Call Me Kuchu,” the late founder of Sexual Minorities [...]
